Why is it necessary to collect both blood and urine samples from the horse post-race? Why can the testing laboratories test just urine or serum and not both?
Dr. Waterman: Plasma is generally an easier medium for laboratories to perform quantitative analysis. Unfortunately, many drugs leave the plasma very quickly so not all drugs can be detected by plasma analysis alone. So, urine is still necessary to detect some drugs in the screening process. As technology improves however, drug testing will be less and less dependant on urine.
Related Questions
- Why is it necessary to collect both blood and urine samples from the horse post-race? Why can the testing laboratories test just urine or serum and not both?
- What type of samples should a facility collect to test how the treatment system is operating (grab vs. composite)?
- Can veterinarians from other countries submit samples to U.S. laboratories for testing?
