Know How Nicotine Test Is Conducted

UsaDrugTest — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:59:34 +0000

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.

Comparison of Hair Drug Testing With Saliva Drug Testing

UsaDrugTest — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:02:24 +0000

An examination of specimen to detect specific drug presence or to determine prior drug abuse is known as drug test. Several methods have been developed to trace drug presence. Among those Hair and Saliva drug testing methods have emerged rapidly and accepted widely throughout the world.

Characteristics Of Hair Drug Testing And Saliva Drug Testing

Hair drug testing method is usually preferred in forensic studies due to its highly accurate results and many organizations use hair drug testing to find drug abuse for longer periods. Saliva drug testing is used in businesses, schools and in sports as results can be obtained immediately and due to its portability.

Hair drug testing and Saliva drug testing methods, both are donor friendly and difficult to adulterate. However, they have specific characteristics in respect of applications of usage.

• Easiness:

- The procedure followed to test drug presence using hair drug testing is easy. It is required to collect some hair samples and to send to a lab for testing.

- Saliva drug testing is easy to use and test can be conducted at the site of specimen collection.

• Duration For Drug Detection:

- Using Hair Drug Testing method, drug presence can be detected even after 90 days from the time of abuse. This test is widely accepted due to its effectiveness in results.

- Saliva drug testing is considered as an effective method to determine recent drug abuse and the duration of detection is 1-2 days from the time of abuse. Effectiveness of the results in saliva drug testing is based on the collection of the specimen.

• Adulteration:

- Adulteration of test samples in hair drug testing is highly impossible.

- In saliva drug testing, it is harder to adulterate but it is good to collect the specimen under the supervision for better results.

• Detects Major Drugs:

- Five major drugs abuse can be detected using hair drug testing using enzyme-immunoassay method.

- Seven major drugs can be detected using saliva drug testing, and using GC/MS method.

• Easy And Convenient:

- Hair drug testing technique is used at laboratories to detect drug presence from the test samples. Performing this test is easy, and convenient for those who know how to perform.

- Saliva drug testing is easy, and convenient to perform the test. This technique is more sensitive than any other drug testing method.

• Accuracy Of Results:

- Hair drug testing results are 100% accurate and these results are used as evidence for drug abuse.

- Accuracy of results in saliva drug testing is 95-98% and often performed in post accident situations.

• Skills Required For Conducting The Test:

- To perform a hair drug test, the person may need relevant knowledge to conduct the test. This test is usually conducted in highly equipped labs.

- Saliva drug testing can be performed by anyone, and at both home and lab.

This information gives characteristics of Hair drug testing and Saliva drug testing to understand the specific applications and to use both the testing methods effectively.

usa drug test » Specimen Collection

Know How Nicotine Test Is Conducted

Comparison of Hair Drug Testing With Saliva Drug Testing