Lab service

The kidneys detoxify the human body by filtering out impurities within the blood which will then be excreted out of the body through the urine. These foreign materials include the degradation products of alcohol and drugs, which allows for the confirmation of substance misuse through urine analysis. There is a time frame in which these individual foreign materials can be detected within urine and each time frame is dependent on the substance that was taken as well as the dosage level.

An overview of the general detection time periods for some of the substances can be found in the table below:

Analysis Method

The method of urine analysis can be either an enzymatic immunological analysis as well as the legal standard of substance testing known as Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS).

Immunological Urine Screenings 

Enzymatic-Immunological Laboratory Analysis provides a rapid and inexpensive determination of drugs and their metabolites within urine. Due to the excellent sensitivity of these tests, low levels of analyte concentrations can also be detected, ensuring reliable results. For a differential determination of the detected substances, a GC/MS analysis is required.

GC/MS-Analysis

Gas chromatography mass spectrometry is a more complex and extensive method than an immunological screening and is therefore a more costly method of analysis. It is considered the gold standard for drug of abuse testing. The sample solution is injected into the GC inlet where it is vaporised and swept onto a chromatographic column by the carrier gas. The sample flows through the column and the compounds comprising the mixture of interest are separated by virtue of their relative interaction with the coating of the column and the carrier gas. The latter part of the column passes through a heated transfer line and ends at the entrance to ion source where compounds eluting from the column are converted to ions. The next component is a mass analyser, which separates the positively charged ions according to various mass related properties. After the ions are separated they enter a detector. The detector sends information to a computer that records all of the data produced, converts the electrical impulses into visual displays and hard copy displays.

GC/MS not only allows the quantitative detection of foreign substances within urine, but also allows a precise differentiation. Furthermore, GC/MS can detect biogenic drugs including LSD and Buprenorphine.