Accuracy of On-site Oral Fluid / Saliva Drug Testing

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs

A comparison between instant and laboratory oral fluid analysis among arrestees.
Yacoubian GS; Wish ED.

Research studies that collect biological measures of drug use have traditionally utilized laboratory urinalysis.

Several recent studies have also documented the utility of laboratory oral fluid (OF) analysis.
A new method of drug testing -- instant OF technology -- may offer a quicker, equally accurate alternative to laboratory OF assays.

To date, however, no field studies have compared the two methods.

In the current study, an instant OF test (Avitar ORALscreen (TM)) was administered to adult arrestees surveyed through Maryland's Substance Abuse Need for Treatment among Arrestees (SANTA) study.

Following a research interview, a second OF sample was collected (Avitar ORALconfirm (TM)) and shipped to the manufacturer's laboratory for analysis.

The Avtiar ORALscreen instant OF test was -

96% sensitive and 83% specific for cocaine,

100% sensitive and 75% specific for opiates, and
100% sensitive and 94% specific for marijuana.

Copyright 2006, Haight-Ashbury Publishing

Reference Source: Yacoubian GS; Wish ED. A comparison between instant and laboratory oral fluid analysis among arrestees. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 38(2): 207-210, 2006. (10 refs.)