By: Deborah Johnson Wood
This week, the Grand Rapids-based Center for Molecular Medicine (CMM) announced it is the only lab in the Midwest with the capability to test nursing mothers for codeine risks that can cause morphine overdoses in nursing infants. When codeine is metabolized, it becomes morphine. People with a variation in a liver enzyme called CYP2D6 may change the codeine to morphine more quickly and completely.
Although the side effect is rare, the FDA issued an advisory last week recommending that, prior to prescribing codeine to nursing mothers, physicians order a special test to determine how the mother metabolizes the drug.
Using a system called the AmpliChip system, the CMM can test a nursing mother's CYP2D6 liver enzyme and determine how she metabolizes codeine. The test will also determine how she metabolizes approximately 25 percent of all prescription drugs on the market.
"The CMM was created to offer physicians exactly this type of tool to prevent adverse drug reactions," says Daniel H. Farkas, executive director. "It is vital that any area physicians contemplating codeine for nursing mothers understand the critical need to complete a CYP2D6 test first in order to accurately determine how an individual's body will process that drug at different dosages."
The one-time test provides a permanent reference that could improve the patient's healthcare and reduce costs.
Source: Center for Molecular Medicine
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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