Andreas Austgulen Westin

27.05.2019: The merging of fourteen different installations will improve the flow and quality of laboratory services. Every year, the hospital laboratories in Central Norway Health Authority process nearly 20 million laboratory analyses, and the level of activity is growing year by year. This development...

25.02.2019: Testing for drugs of abuse is a complex task, and pitfalls abound. The Norwegian Association of Clinical Pharmacology is now launching a series of educational videos to disseminate fundamental knowledge about this topic. Testing for drugs of abuse involves analysing biological specimen, such as...

30.10.2018: Choosing appropriate medication doses for pregnant women is a difficult balancing act, as the mother's need for treatment must be weighed against the risk of fetal harm. The latter is frequently considered to be the most pressing concern, with the result that drugs are discontinued or doses reduced...

13.09.2016: The Norwegian Laboratory Coding System was intended to ensure unambiguous communication between requisitioners and laboratories. The purpose of this was to raise the quality of laboratory medical services in Norway, and conform to the vision of one inhabitant – one medical record. Why did this never...

03.05.2016: There has been a major increase in the number of new drugs of abuse on the global illicit drugs market, including in Norway. These substances are referred to as «novel psychoactive substances» (NPS), and are mainly sold over the Internet. Potent substances in uncertain doses entail a risk of...

03.05.2016: The illicit drugs market has changed in recent years, and the Internet has become increasingly important as a distribution channel. During the first six months of 2015, more than 200 000 user doses of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) were impounded in Norway. Many of these substances are toxic...

21.04.2015: Until recently, no nationwide overview of the clinical pharmacological analyses (i.e therapeutic drug monitoring and testing for drugs-of-abuse) that are undertaken in Norwegian laboratories has been available. «Farmakologiportalen» («The Pharmacology Portal») is now being launched, and this is the...

12.11.2012: Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) can be useful in a number of clinical situations (1). Measuring drug levels in blood, serum or plasma (a definition of these test materials is provided in Box 1) can reveal whether the patient has an aberrant drug metabolism or is non-compliant, or provide an...