Clinical Toxicology Testing

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Clinical toxicology in the laboratory sphere deals with the identification of chemicals, drugs, or toxins that may affect patients and offers a means for clinicians to predict future toxic effects, confirm a diagnosis, or optimize therapy. Drug testing can be used to determine the presence or absence of drugs and/or drug metabolites and may be quantitative (particularly useful for therapeutic drug monitoring) or qualitative to verify compliance with prescribed therapy or identify inappropriate drug use. Pharmacogenetic (PGx) testing can be performed to help explain an adverse drug reaction or to help guide the selection of drugs for an individual patient. Therapeutic drug management can help to optimize the dose of a therapeutic drug and is complementary to PGx testing.

Alcohol Use Biomarkers

Biomarkers play an important role in testing for acute and chronic alcohol ingestion and in monitoring abstinence. Each marker has strengths and weaknesses in particular uses.

Emergency Toxicology

Emergency toxicology focuses on the diagnosis, management, and prevention of poisoning due to drugs, occupational and environmental toxins, and biological agents.

Germline Pharmacogenetics

Patients with genetic variations associated with drug response or disposition may require nonstandard dosing or may be predisposed to risk of drug-related toxicity or lack of therapeutic benefit.

Newborn Drug Testing

Timely detection of in utero drug exposure is critical for effective management of withdrawal syndromes and long-term needs (social and medical) for exposed infants.

Nicotine Exposure and Metabolites

The use of nicotine-containing tobacco products is the main preventable cause of disease and death in the United States. Laboratory testing can detect active or passive exposure.

Drug Testing

Drug testing strategies and methods are not well standardized, which adds challenges to test selection and test result interpretation.

Therapeutic Drug Monitoring

Therapeutic drug monitoring is used to optimize dose therapy to maintain a consistent concentration of drug in the patient’s blood in order to achieve the appropriate therapeutic effect while minimizing the risk for toxicity.

Trace Elements—Deficiency and Toxicity

Therapeutic drug monitoring is used to optimize dose therapy to maintain a consistent concentration of drug in the patient’s blood in order to achieve the appropriate therapeutic effect while minimizing the risk for toxicity.