Urine| Hair Follicle | Oral Fluid | Blood | ETG
Hair testing is recognized as a robust mechanism for identifying drug and alcohol consumption. Hair offers a comprehensive timeline of substances by encapsulating biomarkers within its strands as it grows. When clipped near the scalp, hair can reveal up to a roughly 3-month period of substance use. It is easy to collect, relatively hard to tamper with, and simple to transport.
A sample measuring 1.5 inches, consisting of about 200 hair strands (similar to a #2 pencil's circumference) closest to the scalp will yield 100mg of hair, the optimum quantity for testing and verification. For EtG, additional panels, or analyses exceeding 10 panels, a specimen weighing 150mg is advisable. Using a jeweler’s scale to measure the specimen is suggested. In cases where scalp hair is missing, an equivalent quantity of body hair can be used. In the context of head hair, we mean scalp hair exclusively. Body hair includes all other types (such as facial, axillary, etc.).
Process Overview
The laboratory analysis for a drug test result involves four fundamental steps: Accessioning, Screening, Extraction, and Confirmation.
Accessioning pertains to the initial integration of a sample into the lab’s system. This step includes confirming the sample's proper sealing and shipping, generating a random LAN (Laboratory Accessioning Number), and completing any necessary data entry absent from an electronic chain-of-custody system.
Screening constitutes a preliminary assessment for illicit substances. While Screening offers an economical approach to dismiss drug usage in the majority of samples, a positive result must be substantiated for legal acceptability. Any specimens that preliminarily test positive in Screening require further validation.
If the Screening stage results indicate positivity, additional hair is extracted from the original sample and prepped for Extraction. In Extraction, the substances are isolated from hair at a significantly lower concentration than other methods (e.g., urine or oral fluid), marking hair drug screening as the most challenging method to accomplish.
Verification of any preliminary positive screening outcome is accomplished through GC/MS, GC/MS/MS, or LC/MS/MS. All tentatively positive samples undergo washing before verification as necessary. The complete lab process from Accessioning to Confirmation is examined under the CAP (College of American Pathologists) Hair classification as well as the ISO / IEC 17025 accreditation standards.
Advantages of hair drug testing:
Limitations:
Note: The term "hair follicle tests" is commonly used, yet the analysis targets the hair strand, not the follicle beneath the scalp.
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