nj.com: Could you become an opioid addict? We may soon have a test for that.

3/14/2019

A New Jersey-based research institute along with scientists, academics and medical leaders is trying to crack the genetic code underlying opioid addiction.

 

A New Jersey-based research institute along with scientists, academics and medical leaders is trying to crack the genetic code underlying opioid addiction.

 

 

The only way we know how to deal with opioid addiction is after the fact — only after a person has become hooked.

But what if one day there were a genetic test that could spot whether a person was susceptible to opioid abuse later in life? It would be like 23andMe, but instead of telling whether someone is predisposed to heart disease, this would tell us whether someone might be at risk for opioid dependency.

A New Jersey-based research institute along with scientists, academics and medical leaders is trying to crack this genetic code underlying opioid addiction.

The Coriell Institute for Medical Research, Cooper University Health Care and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University have partnered to launch the Camden Opioid Research Initiative, which will investigate the genetic and biological factors that contribute to opioid abuse.

One delicate but vital part of the study will be collecting and testing the tissue samples of people who have died from opioid overdoses.

Researchers will also be studying people being treated for opioid addiction as well as people who are receiving opioids for chronic pain but are not addicted to them. The team will then compare the findings of these groups.

“The dream would be in 10 or 20 years … some sort of profile or algorithm that would give doctors some useful information — patients with genetic factors that might influence those things. And that’s the idea, to make the information available to physicians,” said Stefan Zajic, principal research scientist and scientific lead for CORI.

Zajic said many addicts’ first encounter with opioids are prescription pills they got from a doctor. While regulations have improved prescription opioid abuse in recent years, many people are still getting hooked from prescribed medication.

But a genetic test showing who might have a predisposition to opioid dependency would give doctors a profile of who is or is not at risk, allowing them to adjust what they prescribe.

“Many people are still encountering opioids in the form of prescriptions," Zajic said. "So we thought if some patients were predisposed to a use problem … they could be prescribed with nonopioid (medications), something more mild, or they could adjust the dose or they could adjust the number of pills and just monitor a little more closely.”

In 2018, more than 3,000 people died in New Jersey from opioid overdoses, a death toll that set a state record for the fourth year, according to preliminary data collected by the state Attorney General’s Office.

The samples from those who have died from opioid overdoses will play an essential role in the study.

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