Steroid Testing

Accurate and rapid testing that’s difficult to cheat

Steroid abuse is a growing, underreported issue in family law cases, which is why our laboratory team have extended our hair testing service portfolio to include anabolic steroids – a unique service among UK laboratories.

As we stated earlier, Cansford labs tests for a range of prescription androgenic anabolic steroids, designer steroids and endogenous hormones, such as DHEA and Testosterone.

Hair strand testing for steroids is a sophisticated and non-invasive method used to detect the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances in an individual’s system.

This technique is based on the fact that when steroids are ingested or injected, they can be metabolised and subsequently incorporated into the hair follicles, where they remain for an extended period.

Hair testing is a fast, reliable means of detecting substance abuse over long periods – between 7 days and 6 months after donor use.

Extremely difficult to cheat, the method tests for metabolites within the hair strand, using sensitive LC-MS/MS techniques (Liquid Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry) to build a month-by-month picture of substance use.

The advantage of hair strand testing over other methods like urine or blood tests is its ability to provide a longer detection window, often spanning several months.

Sample collection is easy and non-invasive, and can be performed by one of our 50 trained collectors UK-wide.