Police officers, law enforcers, employers and drug testing laboratories may soon have a new tool: a breathalyzer test capable of detecting opioid drugs. Engineers and physicians from the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) have developed such a test which would lend itself to use not only for detecting illegal drug use but also monitoring patients being treated with opioids for chronic pain. Problems with Current Opioid Diagnostic Methods Current screening methods detect drugs by immunoassays performed on biological samples, such as urine and blood. Results are confirmed by gold-standard methods typically involving separation techniques coupled to mass spectrometry (MS). While the testing techniques provide reliable results, both specimens have sampling limitations. For one thing, drawing the samples is invasive of privacy. Urine, typically used for longer exposures, has a risk of adulteration; blood collection using plasma or serum to detect short-term consumption requires specialized personnel to collect. The Breathalyzer Alternative Collection of exhaled breath could be a less privacy-sensitive, non-invasive, painless and relatively easy technique. It would work on breath compounds found in either the exhaled breath aerosol (EBA) gas or exhaled breath condensate (EBC) phase. Drugs are mainly large and low-volatile molecules that can be potentially detected in […]