Xylazine found in 1 in 12 specimens tested, finds
new 'Drug Misuse in America' Health Trends® report on the rising
polysubstance crisis
SECAUCUS, N.J., Dec. 19,
2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:
DGX), the nation's leading provider of diagnostic information
services, today unveiled its new confirmatory testing service for
novel psychoactive substances (NPS). The new panel, which tests for
88 compounds, covers a broad array of drug classes, such as
designer opioids, designer benzodiazepines, designer stimulants,
fentanyl analogs, synthetic cannabinoids, and other illicit
additives. Two of these classes are rapidly accelerating America's
overdose crisis: other illicit additives (xylazine) and fentanyl
analogs (acetyl fentanyl). The new test panel is designed to help
healthcare providers detect potential drug misuse in patients
prescribed controlled medications, such as opioids and other
substances, amid a proliferation of synthetic or "designer" drugs
in the nation's drug supply.
![Drug Misuse in America 2023: The Growing Crisis of Novel Psychoactive Substances Drug Misuse in America 2023: The Growing Crisis of Novel Psychoactive Substances](https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2303443/Quest_Diagnostics_2023_HT_DM_Report.pdf?p=pdfthumbnail)
NPS are versions of established prescription and illicit drugs
that are routinely chemically altered to enhance drug effects and
evade tracking by law enforcement. As their chemical composition
frequently evolves, conventional point-of-care and laboratory test
methods may fail to detect NPS, increasing risks for individual
patients and challenging efforts to understand their long-term
health effects or prevalence in communities.
The Quest panel uses definitive liquid chromatography with
advanced tandem mass spectrometry-based testing to establish NPS
misuse. Quest's team of toxicologists, medical experts and data
analysts will periodically review and update the panel to include
the most relevant and prevalent substances present in communities,
as reflected by trends in the company's nationally representative
Health Trends® dataset and the latest reports from public health,
academic research and law enforcement organizations.
Quest developed the panel to address the changing drug epidemic,
as revealed by its nationally representatives Health Trends®
report, "Drug Misuse in America 2023: The Growing Crisis of
Novel Psychoactive Substances." Based on more than 3.6 million
clinical laboratory drug tests performed by Quest Diagnostics in
2022, the report provides insights into the drug crisis and its
shifts from misuse of prescription opioids and fentanyl to NPS. The
report also includes analysis of 3,730 randomly selected "remnant"
specimens tested using a pilot version of the new NPS test
panel.
Approximately 13.1% of remnant specimens tested were positive
for at least one NPS. Of these, the animal tranquilizer xylazine
was found in 8.1%, or nearly 1 in 12 specimens tested, making it
the most prevalent single NPS. Yet, non-xylazine substances,
including fentanyl analogs and designer benzodiazepines, were found
in 5% of remnant specimens tested, or roughly 40% of all
NPS-positive test results.
These findings align with a recent report from the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlighting the
increasing connection between xylazine and opioid overdose deaths
while also revealing growing misuse of other NPS.
Additional key findings include:
- Xylazine positivity among fentanyl-positive specimens was most
prevalent in the Southeast (~90%), Northeast (~80%) and Eastern
(~60%) U.S. regions. Results in the Southwest (<30%) and on the
West Coast (<20%) suggest xylazine has yet to fully penetrate
these U.S. regions.
- One third (32.7%) of fentanyl positive specimens were also
positive for xylazine and nearly all (97.7%) specimens positive for
xylazine were also positive for fentanyl.
- Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) amphetamines-positive specimens showed
fentanyl combining.
- Heroin use rapidly declined, as positivity overall fell from
1.1% in 2021 to 0.4% in 2022.
The Health Trends analysis also found that specimens in areas
with demographics linked to low income levels were nearly 7 times
more likely to test positive for nonprescribed fentanyl than those
linked to high-income communities. The researchers theorize that
these differences are due to comparatively higher quality of care
and generally greater access to resources in high-income
communities.
To access the full Health Trends report, click here.
"Our Health Trends data demonstrates the importance of
considering all possible NPS, not just xylazine, in clinical drug
testing," said Harvey W. Kaufman,
M.D., medical director and head of the Health Trends research
program. "The faster public health and policy makers catch up with
the growing problem of synthetic drugs, the greater the likelihood
of curbing a dangerous and evolving drug epidemic before more lives
are lost and more families and communities suffer irreversible
harm."
For more information, please visit
www.QuestDrugMonitoring.com.
Quest Diagnostics Health Trends studies are performed on
aggregate deidentified laboratory data in compliance with
applicable privacy regulations and the company's strict privacy
policies, and follow procedures approved by the WCG Institutional
Review Board. The present study's strengths include its large data
set, geographic scope, and validated testing by the highly reliable
mass spectrometry method. Its limitations include geographic
disparities and inability to validate or contextualize test results
with medical records. The terms high- and low-income communities
refer to certain geographies that have median income levels that
fall in the highest and lowest quintile as determined by the U.S.
Census Bureau. For the full study methodology, including strengths
and weaknesses, please refer to the full report.
About Quest Diagnostics Health Trends®
Quest
Diagnostics Health Trends® is a series of scientific reports
that provide insights into health issues, based on patient
laboratory data, to empower better patient care, population health
management and public health policy. The reports are based on the
HIPAA-compliant Quest Diagnostics database of more than 60 billion
deidentified laboratory test datapoints. The Quest database is
believed to be the largest of its kind in healthcare. Health Trends
research has yielded novel insights into allergies and asthma,
cancer, COVID-19, diabetes, heart disease, hepatitis, influenza,
Lyme disease, prescription drug misuse and workplace wellness.
Quest Diagnostics also produces the Drug Testing Index (DTI)™, a
series of reports on national workplace drug positivity trends
based on the company's employer workplace drug testing data.
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers
people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the
world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic
insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire
healthy behaviors and improve health care management. Quest
annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the
physicians and hospitals in the United
States, and our nearly 50,000 employees understand that, in
the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights
can inspire actions that transform lives.
www.QuestDiagnostics.com.
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SOURCE Quest Diagnostics