Laboratory screening of body fluids in self poisoning and drug abuse

The technical and other requirements of a laboratory service for the screening of drugs in body fluids are presented. The approach to the analyses depends largely upon the nature of the request arriving at the laboratory, the facilities available, and the purpose for which the results are to be used. An acute toxicology drug screen following drug overdose would be treated differently from a batch of samples arriving from a drug dependency unit, and may entail the provision of an on-call or out of hours service. The provision of a drug analysis service should not be undertaken lightly. It depends largely upon the skill and expertise of the analysts, and can be a very costly exercise. It is important to note also that a wrong result can lead to patient mis-management, or ruin the career of an employee, therefore the greatest care must be taken to ensure that results leaving the laboratory are correct.