English 
Italian Stato dell’arte delle analisi farmacotossicologiche nei laboratori di tossicologia italiani
AUTORI
1Laboratorio Ricerche Chimico-Cliniche, Ospedale Maggiore della Carità e Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”, Novara
2Laboratorio di Farmacotossicologia, Ospedale S. Bartolomeo ASL 5 Liguria, Sarzana (SP)
ABSTRACT
State of the art of pharmacotoxicological analyses in Italian toxicology laboratories
Analyses for drug and substance abuse represent a considerable part of the daily workload of pharmacotoxicology laboratories (PL). Lacking specific rules, PL have developed their own analytical drug testing procedures and, in turn, personalized reports and interpretation. In 2013, the SIBioC Toxicology Study Group did a national survey to assess the situation of the Italian PL involved in drug testing. Here data from this survey are reported. The survey included two questionnaires aimed to clarify laboratory procedures used for workplace drug and drug and alcohol on the road, respectively. The variability of qualitative variables was evaluated by the Gini index of heterogeneity. Although a low response rate to the survey (<30 respondents), data clearly showed a high heterogeneity of laboratory procedures, including preanalytical (custody chain, methods of sample collection, sample volumes, sample adulteration check), analytical (instrumentations, methods, cut-offs) and post-analytical aspects (qualitative or quantitative reporting), in some cases even different from procedures required by Italian law, when available. To avoid subjective interpretation, which could lead to different treatments of citizens, an harmonization of analytical procedures used by the Italian PL is mandatory.