تسجيل الدخول

تسجيل

Conclusions

المؤلف:  Sue Jickells , Adam Negrusz (Editors)

المصدر:  Clarkes Analytical Forensic Toxicology

الجزء والصفحة:  165

2026-10-06

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Conclusions

It appears that the value of hair analysis in the identification of drug users is steadily gaining recognition. This may be seen from its growing use in pre-employment screening, forensic sciences and clinical applications. Hair analysis may be a useful adjunct to conventional drug testing in toxicology. Specimens can be obtained more easily with less embarrassment, and hair can provide a more accurate history of drug use. Although there are still controversies on how to interpret the results, particularly concerning external contamination, cosmetic treatments, genetic considerations and drug incorporation, pure analytical work in hair analysis has reached a sort of plateau, with almost all the analytical problems solved. Although GC-MS is the method of choice in practice, GC-MS/MS or LC MS are today used in several laboratories, even for routine cases, particularly to target low dosage compounds, such as THC-COOH, fentanyl, flunitrazepam or buprenorphine. Electro phoretic and/or electrokinetic analytical strategies, chiral separation or the application of ion mobility spectrometry constitute the latest new developments in the analytical tools reported to document the presence of drugs in hair. Quality assurance is a major issue of drug testing in hair. Since 1990, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, MD, USA) has developed interlaboratory comparisons, recently followed by the Society of Hair Testing (Strasbourg, France). In 2004 during the annual meeting of the Society of Hair Testing in Sevilla, Spain, a consensus was reached by the representatives from several European countries and the US and Canada, and subsequently the document entitled ‘Recommendations for Hair Testing in Forensic Cases’ was published. As indicated before, in April 2004 the US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued Proposed Revisions to Mandatory Guidelines including hair (but also saliva and sweat) as the alternative specimens for workplace drug testing.