HAIRVEQ 2006: Evolution of laboratories’ performance after different educational actions

Current status of accreditation for drug testing in hair

“…In 2002, the Istituto Superiore di Sanità of Rome (ISS), in cooperation with the Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica of Barcelona initiated HAIRVEQ to evaluate the performance of laboratories offering hair testing within the Italian Health System and Institutes of Forensic Medicine. In the latest round in 2006 [12], a total of 32 laboratories participated and although there were a number of false positive and false negative results reported, overall there has been a marked improvement in the quality of hair testing since the introduction of the HAIRVEQ program.…”

Depth and type of substrate influence the ability ofNasonia vitripennis to locate a host

“…The substrates in which larvae of blowflies develop are ephemeral ( Gomes et al 2005 ; Gomes and Von Zuben 2005 ; Gomes et al 2006 ). After the exhaustion of food, larvae begin dispersing to find adequate places for pupation, a process named postfeeding larval dispersal ( Greenberg 1990 ; Gomes et al 2005 ; Gomes and Von Zuben 2005 ; Gomes et al 2006 ; Arnott and Turner 2008 ). Carrion flies can be divided into those that pupate in or near the food source, such as Piophilidae , and those that move away from the carcass to bury into the soil before pupation, such as Calliphoridae and Muscidae ( Voss et al 2009 ).…”

Optimization of a rapid microwave-assisted extraction method for the simultaneous determination of opiates, cocaine and their metabolites in human hair

“…The disadvantages of the enzymatic digestion of hair have been considered given the fact that the resulting digest could, under certain conditions, denature the antibodies used for the preliminary detection of drugs by immunoassays [10]. Overnight digestion in an aqueous solution of 0.01-0.5 M HCl at 40-60 • C temperature or phosphate buffer, followed by post-cleanup using solid phase extraction columns is usually the extraction method of choice [4,7,[24][25][26][27]. Thus, according to results from the third proficiency test organized by the Society of Hair Testing (SoHT), acid hydrolysis can offer higher yields for cocaine, opiates, and their metabolites than those obtained using enzymatic hydrolysis or methanol extraction [9].…”

“…One of the most widely used procedures -gas chromatography-mass spectrometry -requires prior derivatization of the non-volatile analytes [1,3,9,22,27,34,35]. Liquid chromatography [6][7][8][12][13][14]20] and capillary electrophoresis [36] combined with mass spectrometry have emerged as effective and useful approaches in this context, since they allow a large number of analytes to be separated with no derivatization requirements.…”