Patent ID: 7858313

Claim:
A method of determining if a human subject has an increased need for a narcotic analgesic to mitigate pain, which method comprises: detecting a GIRK2 polymorphism in a nucleic acid sample from a human subject, wherein the GIRK2 polymorphism is an A to G polymorphism at position 1032 of the GIRK2 gene and is at position 51 with respect to SEQ ID NO: 7, and determining the human subject's genotype at position 1032 of the GIRK2 gene, wherein detection of an A/A genotype at position 1032 of the GIRK2 gene indicates that the human subject has an increased need for a narcotic analgesic to mitigate pain in comparison to human subjects having an A/G or G/G genotype at position 1032.