Glossary

Immunoassay

The initial screening method that uses antibodies to detect drug classes — fast but less specific than confirmation.

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Immunoassay technologies (EMIT, CEDIA, KIMS, FPIA) are the workhorses of initial drug-test screening. They are fast and inexpensive but susceptible to false positives, which is why every non-negative immunoassay screen must be confirmed by a mass-spectrometry method before being reported as a positive result.