Urine Testing: A Comparison of Five Current Methods for Detecting Morphine

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Abstract
Five assays currently used to detect morphine and/or morphine glucuronide in urine are compared in a double-blind design. Each is suitable for assaying large numbers of samples per day. Three of the assays, radioimmunoassay (RIA), hemagglutination inhibition (HI), and free radical assay technic (FRAT), are recently described serologic tests which detect morphine equivalents (ME): morphine and immunologically related compounds. The other two, an automated spectrofluorometric method (SPF) and thin-layer chromatography (TLC), detected free morphine. Urine samples were obtained from 74 chronic heroin addicts between 3 and 96 hours after the last admitted use of heroin. The most sensitive assays, HI and RIA, detected more than 25 ng. ME per ml. in 66 of the 74 samples. FRAT detected more than 500 ng. ME per ml. in 50 of the 74, and SPF and TLC results were positive for free morphine in 25 of 74 and 26 of 55, respectively. Quantitative data are presented and discussed.

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