Saturday, September 5, 2015

PubMed Update August 2015

Sixteen in August. Back on schedule (thanks to jetlag).

Hawk KF, Vaca FE, D'Onofrio G.
Yale J Biol Med. 2015 Sep 3;88(3):235-245. eCollection 2015 Sep. Review.
Comment: Can’t access full article. Appears to be a review of harm reduction strategies for opioid overdose prevention.

Brady KT, McCauley JL, Back SE.
Am J Psychiatry. 2015 Sep 4:appiajp201515020262. [Epub ahead of print]
Comment: Appropriately draws attention to the problem now faced in the United States: we are cutting back on opioid prescribing to try to limit further opioid dependence, but effectively abandoning many of the people who are already dependent.

DeVido J, Connery H, Hill KP.
J Opioid Manag. 2015 Jul-Aug;11(4):363-6. doi: 10.5055/jom.2015.0285.
Comment: Two case reports of sleep-disordered breathing among buprenorphine patients suggesting that buprenorphine may contribute to sleep apnea.

Paone D, Tuazon E, Stajic M, Sampson B, Allen B, Mantha S, Kunins H.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2015 Aug 15. pii: S0376-8716(15)01598-7. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.08.007. [Epub ahead of print]
Comment: Actually, none of the decedents tested positive for buprenorphine - very few (2) were found to have positive toxicology for norbuprenorphine, a metabolite demonstrating recent – but not recent enough to be causal – consumption of buprenorphine. This is not surprising since it’s tough to overdose on buprenorphine. Nice work.

Hassanian-Moghaddam H, Soltaninejad K, Shadnia S, Kabir A, Movahed M, Mirafzal A.
Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2015 Aug 24. doi: 10.1111/bcpt.12476. [Epub ahead of print]
Comment: Lower consciousness/respirations once in the emergency room were associated with increased likelihood of being intubated and/or dying from methadone overdose. This is interesting in the context of previous papers included on this blog that demonstrate lower likelihood of such outcomes when naloxone is administered in the field. Is it time to think of naloxone as an automated electronic defibrillator?

Larance B, Lintzeris N, Bruno R, Peacock A, Cama E, Ali R, Kihas I, Hordern A, White N, Degenhardt L.
J Subst Abuse Treat. 2015 Jun 24. pii: S0740-5472(15)00137-3. doi: 10.1016/j.jsat.2015.06.001. [Epub ahead of print]
Comment: This is a complex population. Although risk outcomes appear closer to those of someone who uses heroin than those of someone prescribed opioids, the clinical characteristics overlap substantially with the latter group.