DOES NALOXONE CAUSE A POSITIVE URINE OPIATE SCREEN

Study objective: To determine whether the excreted metabolities of nal oxone hydrochloride cause positive urine toxicologic screens for opiat es. Design: Prospective, randomized, double-blinded human protocol. Se tting: Urban Level I military emergency department. Participants: Four teen adult volunteers who took no routine medications, were not pregna nt, had no known sensitivity to naloxone, and who were negative for a pretest urine and serum toxicologic screen. Interventions: We administ ered either 2 or 4 mg IV naloxone to 14 subjects. Urine drug screening was obtained before administration and at 60 minutes, 6 hours, and 48 hours after administration. Results: All urine drug screens using the enzyme-multiplied immunoassay technique were negative for opiates at both dosage levels. The sample size of 14 yielded a power of more than .99 to detect the difference between positive and negative samples. C onclusion: Although the metabolities of naloxone hydrochloride are sim ilar in structure to oxymorphone and are excreted in human urine for s everal days, naloxone was not associated with a positive enzymatic uri ne screen for opiates.