Thaindian News

London, May 22 (IANS) A whiff of exhaled air may now be enough to detect traces of drugs with the help of a new technique, a study says.
“Traditionally, drug tests have been carried out using urine and blood samples,” said Olof Beck, professor from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, who led the study.

“In recent years we’ve been trying to find simpler alternatives using saliva, which, unfortunately, proved difficult,” Beck said.

“Our results open the way for a new kind of drug test, which is simple and safe to conduct and requires no integrity-violating monitoring or medical staff,” Beck added.

Alcohol can easily be checked in a breathalyser, and the technology is available for conducting measurements in a way that doesn’t violate a person’s integrity.

Measurements of other substances in the exhaled breath are available for diagnosing diseases such as asthma and diabetes.

Drug abuse is a huge social problem and drug tests are used comprehensively by healthcare and social services, the legal system, at workplaces and schools.

In this present study, scientists developed a new and unique method for collecting narcotic substances from exhaled breath.

Subjects were asked to breathe into a specially-designed mask for 10 minutes, which collected the exhaled air and passed it through a filter, trapping the narcotic substances.

These filters were then analysed using combined liquid chromatography and tandem mass-spectrometry, techniques that are highly sensitive and reliable.

The researchers took samples from patients who had been admitted into emergency care with toxic symptoms after having taken amphetamines.

Amphetamine is a psychostimulant drug that is known to produce increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.

The samples were taken after the effects of the drug had worn off. The ingestion of the drug was confirmed in the patient group through urine and blood samples, a release of the Karolinska Institutet said.

In all cases, the researchers were able to ascertain the presence of amphetamine and metamphetamine (a narcotics-classed central-stimulating substance similar to amphetamine) in the exhaled breath as well.

“The results are convincing and very promising,” Beck said. “The study is the first to report the possibility of measuring drugs in the exhaled breath, and represents a unique, unexpected finding,” he added.

The findings are slated for publication in the The Journal of Analytical Toxicology.