Nicotine/Cotinine
(NIC/COT)

Sample type

Serum

Uses

• Insecticide and fumigant

• Constituent of tobacco products

• Constituent of smoking cessation products

Precautions

• After collection, gently invert tube 8-10 times.

• Specimen should be processed within 2 hours

• Allow blood to clot for 30 minutes and centrifuge within 2 hours.

• Aliquot serum in plastic aliquot tube

Interfering factors

Screening tests are immunoassay based

Target analyte: cotinine

Cut-off concentration: 500 ng/mL (urine)

Cross-reactivity with 3-hydroxy cotinine

Little or no demonstrated cross-reactivity with nicotine, nicotinic

acid, niacinamide

Pre-analytical errors

Improper tube, clotted, hemolysis, and lipemic samples, underfilled tubes, overfilled tubes, mislabeled or unlabeled specimens.

The corrective action

The sample must be rejected and another sample will be requested.

Post-analytical errors

1- Write another patient’s name in the report

The corrective action

Make sure you write the correct name in the report

2-Writing a wrong result in the report

The corrective action

If the report is not delivered to the patient and this error is discovered the correct result must be written, but if the report is delivered to the patient must communicate with him and tell him that an error has occurred and replace with the ciorrect report

Reference range

Nonsmokers: <6 ng/mL

Cigarette smokers: 10–50 ng/mL