Millennium Laboratories Offers New Tests Enabling Personalized Psychiatric Care

New objective tests identify medications and patient-specific drug metabolism to assist in safe and effective prescribing.

San Diego (PRWEB) - Millennium Laboratories, a leader in the science of toxicology and pharmacogenetics, today announced an expansion of its Millennium UDT (Urine Drug Testing) and PGT (Pharmacogenetic Testing) platforms to further help clinicians individualize the treatment of patients with pain and psychiatric disorders, including substance use disorder, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Including these objective tests as part of a clinical assessment could lead to better patient outcomes by optimizing a clinician’s choice of medication, while potentially minimizing risks for side effects and drug-drug interactions.

Millennium UDT provides specific drug identification by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), detecting the presence of substances and medications in urine. Expansion of the Millennium UDT platform includes the detection of commonly prescribed antidepressants, antipsychotics, antagonists and stimulant medications.

The Millennium PGT platform detects genetic variations in enzymes that may affect the metabolism of certain medications, helping to predict how an individual may respond to those medications. The expansion of Millennium PGT focuses on detecting specific genetic variants, which may affect a patient’s response or ability to tolerate certain psychotropic medications. Millennium PGT now includes testing and personalized interpretation for 24 medications in eight different medication classes including antipsychotics, antidepressants, opioids, benzodiazepines and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) treatments. To see the full list of test offerings, visit http://www.milleniumlabs.com.

"Failure to take a prescribed therapeutic regimen can lead to relapse, adverse events and hospitalizations, so it’s critical for practitioners to know what medications their patients are taking. The combination of Millennium UDT and PGT in the treatment of patients with psychiatric disorders provides comprehensive information that may improve a clinician’s ability to determine the most appropriate and effective treatment regimen and gauge whether patients are adhering to their regimen," said Steven Passik, Ph.D., Millennium Laboratories’ director of clinical addiction research and education.

Mental illness is surprisingly common and causes substantial burden to patients, their families and the health care system. It is the leading cause of disability in North American adults, and neuropsychiatric disorders, which include mental illness and substance use disorders, are more significant contributors to disease burden worldwide than are other diseases, such as heart disease and cancer (1). One out of every four U.S. adults has a mental illness and nearly 50 percent will develop at least one disorder during their lifetime (2). Treating mental disorders is staggeringly expensive, costing an estimated $300 billion annually in the United States (3). Mistreating or not treating these disorders carries substantial cost, as well, estimated at over $100 billion annually (4). Undisclosed discontinuation of psychiatric medications may lead to unintended consequences including relapse, adverse events and hospitalizations (5).

"As a mental health clinician, I understand that a high level of trust in the patient-provider relationship is the foundation for optimizing outcomes for my patients. Building on this foundation, I use self-report and behavioral assessments to personalize treatment plans for each of my patients," said Luis Torres, M.D., Board Certified Psychiatrist, Advanced Behavioral Health, in Tavares, Fl. "With the combination of UDT and PGT, I now have objective tools that I can combine into a comprehensive treatment strategy to provide enhanced care to patients with psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bipolar disease, ADHD and substance use disorder."

"Millennium is the leader in the field of solutions for providing personalized care," said Millennium’s CEO, Brock Hardaway. "These new offerings for practitioners who prescribe psychiatric medications are a continuation of our commitment to improve the lives of patients by introducing new technologies and clinical tools. The objective information obtained with Millennium UDT and PGT can help clinicians move beyond the trial and error approach to treatment and better match patients with medications and treatment regimens most likely to provide the desired outcome."

About Millennium Laboratories
Millennium Laboratories, a leader in the science of toxicology and pharmacogenetics, is transforming the way health care providers improve clinical outcomes. Millennium helps practitioners provide personalized care to patients in need through its patient-centered research and education initiatives and its ability to respond to evolving health care challenges with advanced technology. More information can be found at http://www.millenniumlabs.com.

(1) World Health Organization. Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice: summary report.http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/en/promoting_mhh.pdf. Accessed September 10, 2013. 
(2) Kessler RC, Berglund P, Demler O, et al. Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication.  Arch Gen Psych. 2005; 62 (7):768. 
(3) Mark TL, Levit KR, Buck JA, et al. Mental health treatment expenditure trends, 1986-2003. Psychiatr Serv 2007;58:1041-8. 
(4) National Alliance on Mental Illness. Mental Illnesses. http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=about_mental_illness. Accessed September 10, 2013. 
(5) Mitchell AJ, Selmes T. Why don’t patients take their medicine? Reasons and solutions in psychiatry.  Advances in Psychiatric Treatment. 2007;13:336-46.