Toxicology in clinical laboratories: challenging times

Abstract

In recent years, there have been a number of significant developments in toxicology within clinical laboratories, both with the available instrumentation and in the range of compounds abused by the drug using communities. There have also been developments in the regulation of forensic science in the UK which may in time impact clinical toxicology. This review is designed to provide an update of these changes within toxicology to the more general pathology laboratory audience. For detailed information in specific areas, the reader is referred to the references in the text. In the preparation of this review, the references held by the author as part of his practice of an analytical toxicologist in the NHS were supplemented by a full literature search in Medline and Embase and a review of pertinent UK and European Governments and regulatory agency websites for recent documentation.

Keywords:

• Toxicology
• immunoassay
• mass spectrometry
• epidemiology
• drugs of abuse