Advantages of LC-MS Drug Testing

Along with lowering the chance of accidents in the work place, the drug screening process utilized by employers is to create a more healthy work environment. Along with this goes lowered insurance rates, another benefit for the employer. In general, traditional urinalysis has been the tried and true method of drug screening, but the use of alternative biological specimens such as hair, oral fluid or sweat in workplace drug testing presents several advantages over urinalysis. Liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is a simple collection that can be performed easily without infringing on the examinee’s privacy, so the subject is more likely to perform the test.

LCMS has brought a new insight into bioanalytical and forensic sciences – it allows the detection of drugs and metabolites at concentrations that are difficult to analyze using the more commonly adopted GC-MS (urinalysis) based techniques. This fact, along with the increased accessibility and non-intrusive method of testing make it a more popular modality of substance abuse testing and will most likely be more commonplace as time unfolds.