26 this month. I’m going to call out paper #3 because I think it’s super important. 1) High buprenorphine-related mortality is persistent in Finland. Kriikku P, Häkkinen M, Ojanperä I. Forensic Sci Int. 2018 Aug 17;291:76-82. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.08.010. [Epub ahead of print] Comments: This is an interesting topic. Finland seems to have a lot ofRead More
PubMed Update July 2018
37 papers for July. Ok – now I’m up to date! 1)Using routinely collected data to understand and predict adverse outcomes in opioid agonist treatment: Protocol for the Opioid Agonist Treatment Safety (OATS) Study. Larney S, Hickman M, Fiellin DA, Dobbins T, Nielsen S, Jones NR, Mattick RP, Ali R, Degenhardt L. BMJ Open.Read More
PubMed Update March-June 2018
Life is busy and so are all these writers – 109 papers. This is four months of article updates so a bit overwhelming. Sorry about that. I tried to help by creating some categories, but there are still 35 uncategorized. 26 naloxone papers: 1) Naloxone prescriptions from the emergency department: An initiative in evolution.Read More
PubMed Update February 2018
36 papers this month. I will add that this is a PubMed literature review – we cover published articles. This month, unfortunately, an unpublished paper of very poor methodology with multiple major errors got a lot of attention. I won’t provide the link here so as to avoid drawing further attention to the paper. ItRead More
PubMed Update November 2017
In honor of the impending New Year … we have 38 papers for you in just one month! There’s some sophisticated work here – innovative epidemiology, interventions, and reviews of overdose. We’ve come a long way from the 1990s, but clearly not quickly enough for the dynamic urgency of this issue. 1) Safety andRead More
PubMed Update September-October 2017
51 in two months, continuing to run solid. 1) Using Group Visits to Provide Overdose Education and Distribute Naloxone to High-Risk Primary Care Patients. Bair MJ. Pain Med. 2017 Nov 1. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnx279. [Epub ahead of print] No abstract available. Comment: Described in the title, this is a commentary on a quasi-experimental study in Veterans’ Administration clinics. Read More
PubMed Update February-May 2017
Sorry this took so long. This was partly due to my schedule and partly because we’ve been in a process of transitioning to PrescribeToPrevent. You can thank those unnamed persons who reached out to me asking when the next installment was coming for avoiding a much greater delay! 108 articles in four months. TheRead More
PubMed Update October/November 2016
43 papers this round, and there are some goodies in here for sure (don’t miss #38!). Given the number and varied issues addressed, I divided them up into topic areas and, given the number on naloxone, I divided up the naloxone topic areas as well. Naloxone interventions Primary care 1) Co-prescription of naloxone as aRead More
PubMed Update September 2016
15 papers this month. 1) Drugs, Guns and Cars: How Far We Have Come to Improve Safety in the United States; Yet We Still Have Far to Go. Dodington J, Violano P, Baum CR, Bechtel K. Pediatr Res. 2016 Sep 27. doi: 10.1038/pr.2016.193. [Epub ahead of print] Review. Comment: Review of safety efforts in publicRead More
PubMed Update May 2016
19 this month. Enjoy! 1) Methadone-Related Overdose Deaths in a Liberal Opioid Maintenance Treatment Programme. Tjagvad C, Skurtveit S, Linnet K, Andersen LV, Christoffersen DJ, Clausen T. Eur Addict Res. 2016 Jun 1;22(5):249-258. [Epub ahead of print] Comments: Patients on very high doses of methadone or also using benzodiazepines were at higher risk of death.Read More