الفهرس 
Defining The Problem of Drug Abuse and Recreational Drug ToxicityOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Although toxicological screening has established guidelines in the
fields of workplace drug testing and driving under the influence of drugs,
there is no consensus on its usefulness in management of ED patients with
suspected acute recreational toxicity. In many hospitals, the treatment of
those patients is predicated based on the clinical pattern of toxicity along
with the patient’s own self-reported drug(s) and the circumstances of
presentation, without the use of toxicological tests. However, on many
occasions, depending on the patient’s self-reports or the physicians’
interpretation of the clinical presentations may have limitations.
The utility of an analytical method in the ED generally depends on
many factors including the turnaround time, the screening extent, and the
results precision. In this regard, immunoassay (IA) analytical tests, with the
advantages of being generally fast, simple to conduct and usually with
affordable cost, can be utilized as point-of-care or near-site tests that may
give preliminary information on the utilized drug(s)/substance(s), with the
results either positive or negative depending on a specified concentration cutoff.
However, immunoassays have the limitation of the possibility of false
negative (low sensitivity) and false positive results (poor specificity and
cross-reactivity).
Urine is the traditional sample that is used for toxicological screening
for drugs of abuse in many clinical and forensic settings and is the main
sample that has been researched in the literature to assess the usefulness of
toxicological screening in the emergency department presentations with
suspected recreational toxicity. However, as urine can contain drug(s)/
metabolites for a relatively longer time, it has a major limitation that it does.