Nylon flocked swab severely reduces Hexagon Obti sensibility

Hexagon Obti immunological blood test and flocked swab are widely used in forensic laboratories. Nevertheless, up to now, no compatibility tests have been published between sampling with the ethylene oxide treated flocked swab and the Hexagon Obti blood detection strip. In this study, we investigated this compatibility. Our work shows that sampling with ethylene oxide treated flocked swab reduces by a factor of at least 100 the detection threshold of blood using the Hexagon Obti immunological test.