Urine| Hair Follicle | Oral Fluid | Blood | ETG
Hair testing is now regarded as an effective means for identifying drug and alcohol consumption. Hair captures a long-term record of alcohol and other substances by entrapping biomarkers within the fibers of the growing hair. When clipped near the scalp, hair can offer a detection timeframe of up to about 90 days for alcohol and other drugs. Hair is straightforward to collect, moderately resistant to tampering, and convenient to ship.
A 1.5-inch collection of roughly 200 hair strands (about the girth of a #2 pencil) nearest to the scalp provides 100mg of hair, which is the perfect sample for both screening and confirmation. For EtG, add-ons, and/or tests exceeding 10 panels, a 150mg sample is suggested. We advise using a jeweler’s scale to weigh the specimen. If scalp hair is not available, a comparable quantity of body hair can be sampled. When mentioning head hair, it refers exclusively to scalp hair. Body hair encompasses all other hair types (i.e., facial, axillary, etc.).
Process Overview
The core steps of analyzing a drug test result in the lab include Accessioning, Screening, Extraction, and Confirmation.
Accessioning is the preliminary process of entering a specimen into a lab's system. This process verifies proper sealing and shipment of the sample, assigns a random LAN (Laboratory Accessioning Number), and completes any remaining data entry absent in an electronic chain of custody framework.
Screening is a preliminary rapid assessment for drugs of abuse. Screening provides an economical solution to exclude drug usage in most samples; however, a positive screen demands confirmation for legal admissibility. Samples with a presumptive positive Screening outcome necessitate further confirmation.
For a presumptive positive outcome at the Screening phase, additional hair is extracted from the original sample and readied for Extraction. In this phase, drugs are extracted from hair at significantly lower concentrations than other methods (i.e., urine or oral fluid), making hair drug screening the most challenging methodology to execute.
Any positive Screening result is confirmed with GC/MS, GC/MS/MS, or LC/MS/MS. All presumptive positive samples undergo washing before confirmation, if necessary. The full lab process from Accessioning to Confirmation is scrutinized under both the CAP (College of American Pathologists) Hair designation and accreditation to ISO / IEC 17025 standards.
Advantages of hair drug testing:
Limitations:
Note: Referred to as "hair follicle tests", the analysis itself evaluates the hair strand rather than the hair follicle under the scalp.
Why Hair Follicle Testing Beats Urine Testing in Swans Island, ME.
Extended Detection Window in Swans Island, ME.
Tamper-Resistant Testing Method in Swans Island, ME.
Convenient Nationwide Testing Locations in Swans Island, ME.
Simple, Confidential Process in Swans Island, ME.
Affordable Pricing and Fast Turnaround in Swans Island, ME.
Fast, Accurate, and Reliable Results in Swans Island, ME.
Compliance and Peace of Mind for Employers in Swans Island, ME.