MicroNIRChemometrics A new analytical platform for fast and accurate detection of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in oral fluids.
Δ Specimens from volunteers were collected in order to consider any sources of variability in the spectral response and spiked with increasing amount of THC in order to realize predictive models to be used in real cases. Partial Least Square-Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) and Partial Least Square regression (PLSr) for the simultaneously detection and quantification of THC, were applied to baseline corrected spectra pre-treated by first derivative transform. Results demonstrated that MicroNIRChemometric platform is statistically able to identify THC abuse in simulated oral fluid samples containing THC from 10 to 100 ngml, with a precision and a sensitivity of about 1.51% and 0.1% respectively. The coupling MicroNIRChemometrics permits to simplify THC abuse monitoring for roadside drug testing or workplace surveillance and provides the rapid interpretation of results, as once the model is assessed, it can be used to process real samples in a click-on device.