A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF 5 RAPID DETECTION KITS FOR ON SITE DRUGS OF ABUSE SCREENING

There ave now several rapid drugs of abuse testing Wits that have been designed for near-patient testing and on-site clinic screening for dr ug abuse. These kits are sold on the basis of their cost and rapid gen eration of accurate results. Five such Kits have been evaluated by com parison with recognized and established methodologies. All of the kits evaluated were found to lack both sensitivity and specificity. An una cceptable proportion of false negative and false positive results were observed for most Kits. This raises the question of their usefulness in the near-patient and clinic situation.