Urine| Hair Follicle | Oral Fluid | Blood | ETG
Hair analysis has increasingly been acknowledged as an effective method for identifying drug and alcohol consumption. This involves embedding biomarkers within the strands of hair, offering a prolonged history of substance use. When obtained near the scalp, hair samples can offer an approximate three-month period of detection for both alcohol and various drugs. Collection is straightforward, tampering is relatively challenging, and transportation is uncomplicated.
To obtain an adequate 100mg hair sample for analysis and verification, a 1.5-inch segment containing roughly 200 hairs, akin to the thickness of a #2 pencil, is required from the scalp. For tests such as EtG or over 10-panel screens, 150mg is advisable. It's best to measure the sample using a jeweler's scale. If scalp hairs are unavailable, equivalent quantities of body hair can be collected. The term 'head hair' is strictly related to scalp hair, while 'body hair' encompasses all other hair types (such as facial or axillary hair).
Process Overview
The laboratory sequence for assessing a drug test result primarily includes four stages: Accessioning, Screening, Extraction, and Confirmation.
Accessioning pertains to entering a sample into a lab's protocol, ensuring correct sealing and shipping, assigning an arbitrary LAN (Laboratory Accessioning Number), and filling out supplementary data not captured by an electronic custody chain.
Screening denotes a preliminary, swift assessment for detecting substance abuse. Though Screening provides an economically efficient means to negate drug use across most samples, court admission necessitates confirming any positive results. Samples presuming positivity in Screening mandate a subsequent confirmation.
For samples testing presumptively positive during Screening, additional hair from the initial sample is extracted for the Extraction phase. During Extraction, drug isolation from hair occurs at notably lower concentrations compared to other techniques (such as urine or oral fluid), which contributes to the increased complexity of hair drug analysis.
Confirmation of any positive Screening outcomes utilizes GC/MS, GC/MS/MS, or LC/MS/MS techniques. Presumptively positive samples undergo washing prior to necessary confirmations. The entire lab procedure, spanning Accessioning to Confirmation, undergoes scrutiny per both the CAP (College of American Pathologists) Hair guidelines and accreditation consonant with ISO / IEC 17025 standards.
Advantages of hair drug testing:
Limitations:
Note: Commonly called "hair follicle tests", the process actually examines the hair strand, not the follicle beneath the scalp.
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