Urine| Hair Follicle | Oral Fluid | Blood | ETG
The utilization of hair testing has increasingly been recognized as an effective means for identifying drug and alcohol consumption. Hair captures a substantial history of substance usage by embedding biomarkers within the strands as they develop. When hair is gathered close to the scalp, it can reveal substance use for an estimated three months. The process of collecting hair is straightforward, challenging to tamper with, and convenient for transport.
Securing a 1.5-inch segment of roughly 200 hair strands next to the scalp, equivalent to the diameter of a #2 pencil, yields 100mg of hair, which is ideal for both screening and confirmation. For EtG testing, additional services, or tests exceeding ten panels, a specimen of 150mg is suggested. We advise measuring the sample using a jeweler’s scale. Should scalp hair not be viable, an equivalent quantity of body hair may be used. Head hair refers exclusively to scalp hair. Conversely, body hair encompasses other varieties (e.g., facial, axillary).
Process Overview
There are four primary stages in the lab processing of a drug test result: Accessioning, Screening, Extraction, and Confirmation.
Accessioning constitutes the preliminary processing of a specimen within a lab's system. This step ensures the specimen was sealed and delivered correctly, assigns a random LAN (Laboratory Accessioning Number), and completes any supplementary data entry absent from an electronic chain of custody protocol.
Screening incorporates an initial assessment for substances of abuse. Although Screening is an economical approach to exclude drug use in most specimens, a positive Screening result must be verified to hold up in legal settings. Any specimens that are preliminarily positive during Screening necessitate a subsequent confirmation.
If a specimen tests preliminarily positive during Screening, additional hair is extracted from the original sample and readied for Extraction. During this phase, substances are isolated from hair at markedly lower concentrations than alternative methods (e.g., urine or oral fluid), rendering hair drug screening a more intricate methodology.
Confirmation of a positive Screening outcome is executed through GC/MS, GC/MS/MS, or LC/MS/MS procedures. All preliminarily positive specimens are cleansed as necessary before confirmation. The comprehensive laboratory process from Accessioning to Confirmation is scrutinized under both the CAP (College of American Pathologists) Hair designation and the accreditation according to ISO / IEC 17025 standards.
Advantages of hair drug testing:
Limitations:
Note: Despite being frequently called "hair follicle tests," the examination targets the hair strand itself, rather than the follicle beneath the scalp.
Why Hair Follicle Testing Beats Urine Testing in Town and Country, WA
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Tamper-Resistant Testing Method in Town and Country, WA
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