Ricerc@Sapienza

The increasing phenomenon of drug addiction and the introduction of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) have led to a progressive growth of research in the field of forensic analytical toxicology, with the need to develop modern and faster analytical procedures. Hair testing has gained increasing attention and recognition as a complement to blood and urine analysis, since it is a unique material for the retrospective detection of drugs, due to its large detection window.

The measurement of ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in hair is an established practice to evaluate alcohol consumption habits of the donors, nevertheless analytical variability has shown to be an important factor to be considered: measured EtG values can vary significantly as a consequence of analyte wash-out during decontamination, pulverization of samples, extraction solvent and incubation temperature.