Trends in drug use from urine drug testing of addiction treatment clients

Kenneth L. Kirsh, PhD; Howard A. Heit, MD; Angela Huskey, PharmD, CPE; Jennifer Strickland, PharmD, BCPS; Kathleen Egan City, MA, BSN, RN; Steven D. Passik, PhD

doi:10.5055/jom.2015.0253

Authors

Kenneth L. Kirsh, PhD
Howard A. Heit, MD
Angela Huskey, PharmD, CPE
Jennifer Strickland, PharmD, BCPS
Kathleen Egan City, MA, BSN, RN
Steven D. Passik, PhD

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5055/jom.2015.0253

Keywords:

addiction, urine drug testing, relapse, monitoring

Abstract

Objective: Urine drug testing (UDT) can play an important role in the care of patients in recovery from addiction, and it has become necessary for providers and programs to utilize specific, accurate testing beyond what immunoassay (IA) provides.

Design: A database of addiction treatment and recovery programs was sampled to demonstrate national trends in drug abuse and to explore potential clinical implications of differing results due to the type of testing utilized.

Setting: Deidentified data was selected from a national laboratory testing company that had undergone liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LCMS/MS).

Patients/Participants: A total of 4,299 samples were selected for study.

Interventions: Descriptive statistics of the trends are presented.

Results: In total, 48.5 percent (n = 2,082) of the samples were deemed in full agreement between the practice reports and the results of LC-MS/MS testing. The remaining 51.5 percent of samples fell into one of seven categories of unexpected results, with the most frequent being detection of an unreported prescription medication (n = 1,097).

Conclusions: Results of UDT demonstrate that more than half of samples yield unexpected results from specimens collected in addiction treatment. When comparing results of IA and LC-MS/MS, it is important to consider the limits of IA in the detection of drug use by these patients.

Author Biographies

Kenneth L. Kirsh, PhD

Millennium Research Institute, San Diego, California; Vice President, Clinical Research and Advocacy, Millennium Health, San Diego, California.

Howard A. Heit, MD

Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC.

Angela Huskey, PharmD, CPE

Millennium Research Institute, San Diego, California; Millennium Health, San Diego, California.

Jennifer Strickland, PharmD, BCPS

Millennium Research Institute, San Diego, California.

Kathleen Egan City, MA, BSN, RN

Millennium Research Institute, San Diego, California; Millennium Health, San Diego, California.

Steven D. Passik, PhD

Millennium Research Institute, San Diego, California; Vice President, Clinical Research and Advocacy, Millennium Health, San Diego, California.

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