Urine| Hair Follicle | Oral Fluid | Blood | ETG
Hair analysis is now recognized as an effective technique for identifying drug and alcohol consumption. Hair offers a prolonged record of alcohol and other drugs by incorporating biomarkers within its fibers as it grows. When sampled close to the scalp, hair can reveal a detection period of up to roughly three months for alcohol and other substances. Hair is straightforward to collect, relatively resistant to tampering, and convenient to ship.
A 1.5-inch section of around 200 hair strands (roughly matching the thickness of a #2 pencil) nearest to the scalp will yield 100mg of hair, which is the optimal amount for screening and verification. For EtG, additional tests, and/or those exceeding 10 panels, 150mg of the sample is advised. It's recommended to use a jeweler’s scale to measure the specimen. If scalp hair is not available, an equivalent quantity of body hair can be used. References to head hair pertain only to scalp hair, while body hair includes all other types (facial, axillary, etc.).
Process Overview
The procedure for processing a drug test result in a lab involves four principal steps: Accessioning, Screening, Extraction, and Confirmation.
Accessioning is the initial stage where a sample is introduced into a lab’s system. This step ensures that the sample was properly sealed and dispatched, assigns an arbitrary LAN (Laboratory Accessioning Number), and completes any extra data entry that isn’t part of an electronic chain of custody system.
Screening is a preliminary rapid assessment for substances of abuse. Although Screening is a cost-efficient method to eliminate drug consumption in most samples, a positive result necessitates verification to be permissible in court. Any samples yielding a tentative positive result in Screening must undergo further validation.
If a Screening stage result is tentatively positive, additional hair is taken from the initial sample and readied for Extraction. During this phase, drugs are extracted from hair at significantly lower concentrations compared to other techniques (e.g., urine or oral fluid), highlighting the challenging nature of hair drug screening.
Confirmation of any positive screening outcome is performed using GC/MS, GC/MS/MS, or LC/MS/MS. All samples that are presumptive positives are cleansed as required before confirmation. The 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: Although commonly called "hair follicle tests", the procedure examines the hair strand, not the follicle beneath the scalp.
Why Hair Follicle Testing is Superior to Urine Testing in Hillsdale, OK
Broad Detection Window in Hillsdale, OK
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