title: [Procedural aspects and interpretation problems in the analysis of drugs of abuse].
abstract: Addiction scene is showing rapid changes about substances and patterns of use/abuse. Increasing requirements from clinical and forensic fields to identify drugs of abuse and to find them at ever decreasing levels in biological samples, have led to a great improvement in the state of the art of analytical toxicology. This paper discusses various aspects of these developments highlighting possibilities and problems that make the toxicological determination to be evaluated with prudence, keeping in mind that these results involve legal aspects too. Special attention is focused to the so-called "designer drugs", to the outside laboratory assays and to the problems due to poly-drugs assumption.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio di Biochimica Clinica, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, V.le Regina Elena 299, 00161 Roma. rosman@iss.it
authors.forename: Rosanna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mancinelli
authors.forename: Maria Soccorsa
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Guiducci
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D013287:Illicit Drugs / Q000032:analysis*; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry; D013048:Specimen Handling; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000379:methods*; D013542:Sweat / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D013287:Illicit Drugs