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mistakemom
Oct 20, 2010, 08:19 PM
I found this and I am obsessed with the possibility that I could fail even after the 80 hours...
Courts: A 3-Month Analysis of Screening and Confirmation Data

DeKalb County Drug Court, 556 N. McDonough Street, Decatur, Georgia 30030. The report

Was prepared for the Georgia Administrative Office of the Courts and Judicial Council Standing

Committee of Drug Courts. The study was conducted with the generous support of United States

Drug Testing Laboratories, Inc.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Ethyl Glucuronide (EtG) is a direct biomarker of ethanol ingestion with a 2 to 5 day

Detection window in urine and is generally accepted to detect beverage ethanol consumption at or above a 90 percent sensitivity level. EtG's superior detection window and sensitivity over conventional breath and urine ethanol detection methods has made it an increasingly popular assay for detection of participant alcohol use and relapse among Georgia's Drug and DUI treatment courts. The introduction of the Microgenics DRI EtG assay was met with considerable interest by Georgia's Drug and DUI Treatment Courts given its potential cost-savings and operational benefits. However, the limited public domain data exploring the screen's field performance and relationship

To mass spectrometry confirmation results prompted the DeKalb County Drug Court to undertake the present study with the participation of several partnering jurisdictions, including Cherokee, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett County treatment courts.

The primary goal of the study was to confirm the Microgenics DRI EtG assay' s

Sensitivity, specificity, and reliability in non-laboratory conditions. The study was

Conducted by comparing positive results at 500 ng/mL and 100 ng/mL to higher-order

Mass spectrometry confirmation results on the same sample. Although a relatively

Limited number of specimens tested positive at the 500 ng/mL cut-off, the Microgenics

DRI EtG assay stood-up to LC/MS/MS in approximately 85% of confirmations.

Conversely, the screen did not perform as well at a 100 ng/mL cut-off, yielding a 59%

Confirmation rate. A rather startling result from the study was that nearly 12% of screens

Sent for LC/MS/MS confirmation indicated the possibility of EtG breakdown between
Screen and confirmation. The results of the study suggest that the Microgenics DRI EtG assay performs at a satisfactory level of sensitivity, specificity and reliability at 500 ng/mL in nonlaboratory conditions.

DrBill100
Oct 20, 2010, 11:10 PM
Microgenics DRI EtG Assay is an immunoassay. That is an immediate response test (dip stick equivalent) that is used outside the laboratory setting. It was recently introduced. The 500 and 100 are the cutoffs of the test. This was tested in comparison to the Liquid Chromatography/Dual Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) a highly sensitive device and heretofore the traditional method for testing for EtG. The figures speak for themselves. Error rates at 15% (500) and 41% (100).

Other tests of the Microgenics IA have found similar error rates. It looks like this group thinks being wrong 15 out of every 100 clients is acceptable.

Use of this test is nonetheless expanding but so is the criticism of EtG testing in general. For a more thorough listing of the problems with EtG testing in general, by Greg Skipper, MD, the doctor that introduced it to the US see: Ethylglururonide. (http://etg.weebly.com/)

This has no direct bearing on your test.