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Tag Archives: Pain management

When pain management testing calls for a consult

October 2016—Surprises might work for birthday parties—and even then they’re not everyone’s cup of tea—but not in drug screening programs. Perhaps the most common reason for doing a toxicology consultation is when a urine drug screen yields an unexpected result, either positive or negative, says Nicholas Heger, PhD, assistant director of clinical chemistry at Tufts Medical Center and assistant professor of anatomic and clinical pathology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston.

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Mass spec up front for pain management testing: Interest growing in oral fluid testing as alternative to urine testing

September 2016—This fall, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, is taking the mass spec leap. A plucky PR person might be tempted to refer to it as MassSpec LEAP!™ but Stacy Melanson, MD, PhD, doesn’t have time for such nonsense. As the associate director of clinical laboratories and co-director of chemistry, Dr. Melanson has more important matters to attend to. She and her colleagues are shifting from using a screening immunoassay for pain management drug testing to up-front definitive testing by LC tandem mass spectrometry.

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Painstaking process of drug monitoring

August 2016—As optimists like to point out (in their annoying way), showing up is half the battle. But it’s still only half, as other, equally clear-eyed folks might point out. That leaves plenty to do. And in drug testing for chronic pain management, the work facing laboratories may seem like even more than 50 percent.

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