The Toxicology Process

Where in the body does the blood for toxicology testing come from?
Check out the video to find out.*

What’s happening in the video:
We’re entering the sac around the heart (pericardial sac) to view the heart.
The heart is lifted up and we can see some fluid in the sac. That’s normal.
Blood is draw from the back of the upper part of the heart on the right (right atrium).

The blood will be squirted into a test tube and sent to the lab.

Test tube photo
 

The lab tests the sample and generates a report.
Here’s an (edited) example of a toxicology report.

toxicology

*Blood is also commonly draw from the vein going to the legs (femoral vein).