January 21st, 2010 by admin

Nicotine test gives the levels of nicotine addiction or abuse in a person. The drug Nicotine is one of the regularly abused and commercially available drugs in the society. Apart from tobacco smoking, nicotine is also available in forms of nicotine gum, transdermal patches, and nasal sprays. Nicotine abuse results in increased risk of lung cancer, heart diseases, COPD, strokes, asthma, blood clot formation, etc. Nicotine test will help a person in checking his nicotine abuse effectively and thus decrease its adverse affects.

Specimen Collection
Nicotine test identifies its metabolite – cotinine. Though cotinine can be measured in saliva and hair, detecting cotinine through analytical urine test is mostly prevalent and easy. It is also effective in terms of providing results as cotinine can be detected for up to 3 days after consumption at a cut-off level of 200 ng/ml.

Nicotine Drug Test Method
The One Stop Cotinine test device is an effective way of qualitative cotinine detection in human urine. It is important to make sure that the test device is at room temperature, before testing. The device must be placed on a clean and level surface. The specimen should be taken into the provided dropper. Holding the drop vertically, 3 full drops must be transferred into the S (specimen) part of the test kit. There should be no trapping of air bubbles in the S part of the kit.

Interpretation of the Results
The interpretation of the results must be read exactly after five minutes after providing sample to the testing kit. There are two ends in the testing kit labeled C (control line region) and T (test line region), where colored lines will appear. When the colored lines appear at both the regions, it indicates that the cotinine concentration is below cut-off level i.e., negative. Even a faint shade of line in T region can be considered negative. When there is no colored line in T region, but it is visible in C region of the test kit, it can be considered as positive for cotinine abuse. When a line does not appear in the C region, then the test is invalid. Invalid results are likely to show up in cases of insufficient specimen volume or Incorrect testing procedure.

Nicotine tests are helpful in many cases like smoking cessation programs, during application of life or health insurance, employee drug testing programs, for self-testing, and during medical complications.

January 21st, 2010 by admin

Opiates are one of the most addictive drugs with sedative and analgesic effects, which depress the central nervous system. According to the TEDS report, opiates are the primary substance of abuse and accounted for almost one-fifth (19 percent) of all substance abuse treatment admissions in 2007. Some common opiates are morphine, codeine and heroin, of which heroin is the major illegal drug. According to NSDUH, there were about 114,000 persons aged 12 or older who used heroin for the first time within the past 12 months in 2008.

Opiates is one of the five metabolite groups called SAMHSA-5 that can be tested for workplace drug testing under SAMHSA guidelines. The opiate drug tests detect the presence of codeine, morphine, and 6-acetyl-morphine. The presence of 6-acetyl-morphine shows recent heroin abuse.

Urine drug testing:
Urine test is a common method of detecting opiate and its metabolites in urine specimen. Morphine can be detected in urine for 2 days, codaine for 2 to 3 days and heroin for 3 to 4 days. The cutoff concentration for initial test of opiate metabolites is 2000ng/mL. The confirmatory cut off level for morphine and codeine are 2000ng/mL and 10ng/mL for 6-acetylmorphine.

Hair drug testing:
Many opiates can be detected using hair tests. Hair tests require a sample of hair about 90 to 120 strands. The standard hair screen uses the most recent 1.5 inches of growth for testing. Hair tests detect substance abuse over a long period. Morphine, codeine and heroin can be detected for up to 90 days using hair tests. The initial cutoff level for opiate metabolites is 200 pg/mg and confirmatory cutoff value is also 200 pg/mg.

Saliva drug testing:
Saliva tests are easy to administer and adulteration of the specimen can be avoided. Morphine and heroin can be detected in saliva for 1 to 2 days and codeine for 2 to 3 days. The initial cutoff concentration level for opiate metabolites is 40ng/mL. The confirmatory test cutoff level for Morphine and codeine are 40ng/mL each and 4 ng/mL for 6-acetylmorphine.

Opiate abuse continues be a serious threat to public health. The above information will surely help you to understand different methods of opiate drug testing and choose the better one to detect this harmful drug without much hassle.