Abstract
Background
Opioid abuse in chronic pain patients is a major public health issue, with rapidly increasing addiction rates and deaths from unintentional overdose more than quadrupling since 1999.
Purpose
This study seeks to determine the predictability of aberrant behavior to opioids using a comprehensive scoring algorithm incorporating phenotypic risk factors and neuroscience-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
Patients and methods
The Proove Opioid Risk (POR) algorithm determines the predictability of aberrant behavior to opioids using a comprehensive scoring algorithm incorporating phenotypic risk factors and neuroscience-associated SNPs. In a validation study with 258 subjects with diagnosed opioid use disorder (OUD) and 650 controls who reported using opioids, the POR successfully categorized patients at high and moderate risks of opioid misuse or abuse with 95.7% sensitivity. Regardless of changes in the prevalence of opioid misuse or abuse, the sensitivity of POR remained >95%.
Conclusion
The POR correctly stratifies patients into low-, moderate-, and high-risk categories to appropriately identify patients at need for additional guidance, monitoring, or treatment changes.
Supplementary material
Table S1 Sensitivities and specificities of the POR algorithm using different cutoffs of POR scores to predict OUD
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the patients who participated in this study, without whom this study would not be possible. Proove Biosciences provided support for this study. The article has been presented at International Conference on Opioids, June 5–7, 2016, Boston, MA, USA.
Disclosure
AB, SK, BM, and CL are the employees of Proove Biosciences. JB is a former employee of Proove Biosciences. MS and SR are on the Medical Advisory Board of Proove Biosciences. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.