Urine| Hair Follicle | Oral Fluid | Blood | ETG
Hair testing is recognized as an effective instrument for revealing drug and alcohol usage. It captures a prolonged history of substances by embedding biomarkers in the strands as hair grows. Snapshots near the scalp can indicate up to roughly three months of substance presence, offering a viable timeframe for detecting alcohol and drug use. It's easy to gather, tough to tamper with, and straightforward to transport.
A sectional 1.5-inch hair sample of around 200 strands (similar to the width of a #2 pencil) near the scalp offers 100mg, an optimal quantity for both initial screening and subsequent verification. In cases involving EtG, additional screenings, or tests beyond 10 panels, 150mg of hair is advisable. It's suggested to use a jeweler’s scale for precise measurement. Should scalp hair be unavailable, equivalent body hair can be utilized. References to head hair specifically imply scalp hair; conversely, body hair alludes to alternate types such as facial or axillary hair.
Process Overview
The primary steps in processing a drug test in a lab comprise Accessioning, Screening, Extraction, and Confirmation.
Accessioning is the initial stage where a sample is ingested into the laboratory system. This incorporates checking if the sample was sealed and dispatched appropriately, randomly allocating a LAN (Laboratory Accessioning Number), and completing any outstanding data input that isn’t already captured through an electronic custody chain.
Screening involves a preliminary test for substance abuse signs. While it's a cost-efficient strategy to dismiss drug usage in most samples, a positive initial screen mandates confirmation to hold in court. Samples indicative of positivity in Screening necessitate confirmatory testing.
Should a sample exhibit presumed positive results during Screening, additional hair is taken from the main specimen for the Extraction process. In Extraction, substance removal from hair occurs at significantly lower concentrations compared to alternative methods like urine or oral fluids, explaining why hair drug methodology presents heightened challenges.
All positive Screening outcomes are corroborated via GC/MS, GC/MS/MS, or LC/MS/MS. Any samples tagged as potentially positive are cleansed before Confirmation. This entire process is inspected under both the CAP (College of American Pathologists) Hair specifications and the ISO / IEC 17025 accreditation standards.
Advantages of hair drug testing:
Limitations:
Note: Commonly termed "hair follicle tests", they in fact examine the hair strand, not the follicle beneath the skin.
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