Substance Misuse Toxicology
Eurofins Genetic Services offers a laboratory testing service to detect the long-term misuse of drugs and alcohol. Analysis of a sample of the subject's hair is used to detect either the presence of the substance of abuse or the products of its metabolism.
Drug Testing
Hair strand analysis is used to detect the long-term misuse of a wide range of commonly abused drugs, together with a number of less common drugs:
Common Drugs of Abuse
Amphetamides, Benzodiazepines, Cocaine, Cannabinoids (compounds present in Cannabis), Methadone, Methylamphetamines and Opiates
Unusual Drugs of Abuse
Bupreonorphine, Barbiturates, Fentanyl, Ketamine and Pethadine
The advantage of hair drug testing over urine or serum drug tests is that the hair drug tests can provide evidence of the pattern of abuse over a time period of several months, depending on the quality of the hair sample provided.
Alcohol Testing
Ethyl glucuronide, one of the products resulting from the metabolism of alcohol, is deposited in the hair and nails and can be detected using hair analysis. Hair alcohol testing in reliable means of detecting long-term alcohol abuse and is often used to monitor the progress of those receiving treatment for alcoholism.
