Comparison of ethanol and other drugs of abuse concentrations in whole blood stored in venoject glass and plastic and venosafe plastic evacuated tubes.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the stability of blood concentrations of a variety of illegal and medicinal drugs that are important for forensic analyses when spiked and stored in Vacutainer or Venosafe evacuated plastic collection tubes compared to Vacutainer evacuated glass tubes. Tubes were filled with spiked whole blood and analyzed after storage for one week at ambient temperature and at -20 degrees C, respectively. Freeze-and-thaw stability was included in the study. No significant difference between storage in glass or plastic tubes was noted for any compound investigated.