Drug Screening Test

The technologies and analytical methods used for drug screening services should have been regulated and approved by the FDA or it should be in wide application with the Criminal Justice System; almost every kind of drug screening test that is being released for public use should be approved by the FDA. The manufacturers of drug screening urine test kit provide with package insert instructions in an easy to understand format making it easy for the onsite technicians to conduct tests on. The cot off standards for the test result should be clearly mentioned in the test package.

Most of the urinalysis technologies that are used to arrive at drug screening results are based on two major principles, which are immunoassay and chromatography. Immunoassays are used for the initial screening of specimens. EMIT, TDX and RIA are variations of immunoassays which form the foundation stone for almost all the drug screening preliminary testing methods. The TLC and the GC/MS are based on chromatographic techniques.

The drug screening question is based on the sensitivity and specificity of the test methods in common practice. In fact the different kinds of drug screening methods are proved on their superiority by means of their sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity refers to the ability of a test to detect positive specimens. Highly sensitive test methods will be able to detect even very low quantities of drugs. Procedures that are not sensitive tend to miss on the detection of the drugs even at the required cut off concentration, thereby causing a lot of false positive result. A test method that is less sensitive will report negative when the drug metabolite is actually present in the specimen.

Specificity is another important consideration for any drug testing method. Specificity is the capability of the test to be able to differentiate between the drugs, the drug metabolite that is of interest in the study, and preventing positives from the cross reaction from other substances that is not desired in the test methods. A drug screening method that is highly specific produces very few false positives. Very few specimens show positive, when the sample is actually negative for the substance being tested. False positives occur because a particular compound resembles the substance that is being tested. Immunoassays are designed with moderate to good sensitivity and therefore they can detect small amounts of drugs with accurate specificity and sensitivity most of the time.

Call toll free 1-877-281-9756 or international toll free: 1-864-631-7371 or write to info@rapiddrugdetection.com, know more about highly specific and sensitive drug testing methods.

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