Publications by authors named "Stephanie D Gozum"

Article Synopsis
  • The rise of illicit opioids, often disguised as prescription medications, poses serious public health risks due to unknown potencies and higher overdose potential, especially with drugs like fentanyl.
  • Methods were developed to accurately identify and measure fentanyl and 18 designer opioids in urine samples, specifically targeting those from pain management patients.
  • In a study of pain management patients, 25% of those with heroin in their system tested positive for designer opioids, while less than 1% tested positive in random pain samples, highlighting a significant correlation between heroin use and designer opioid exposure.
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A wide range of concentrations are frequently observed when measuring drugs of abuse in urine toxicology samples; this is especially true for amphetamine and methamphetamine. Routine liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry confirmatory methods commonly anchored at a 50 ng/mL lower limit of quantitation can span approximately a 100-fold concentration range before regions of non-linearity are reached deteriorating accurate quantitation and qualitative assessments. In our experience, approximately a quarter of amphetamine and methamphetamine positive samples are above a 5,000 ng/mL upper limit of quantitation and thus require reanalysis with dilution for accurate quantitative and acceptable qualitative results.

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Background: Patients with iron-deficiency anemia benefit from intravenous iron therapies. Development of these pharmaceutical agents requires pharmacokinetic studies monitoring levels of both the administered agent and transferrin-bound iron (TBI). Successful pharmacokinetic methods must discriminate iron species.

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