Authors

Oral fluids are being used as an alternative matrix to urine for drug testing related to employment, drug treatment, parole, and suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs. Oral fluid is considered to be less invasive and much more difficult to adulterate than urine samples. Samples of oral fluid are typically screened by an ELISA immunoassay method. Those found to be positive must be further analyzed with a mass spectrometry confirmation technique. The confirmation technique must be able to detect the drugs of abuse (DOA) in oral fluids down to concentra-tions lower then those used in urine testing. For example, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) must be measured down to 0.5 ng/mL of diluted oral fluid when collected with the Intercept ® oral fluid collector. The analysis is complicated by interferences from the complex sample matrix. For these samples, techniques like gas chromatography/ mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (GC/MS/MS) and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) have been used. The highe