Luminol is primarily used as a presumptive test at
scenes of crime. In these scenarios, its cross-reactivity
has been widely studied, particularly for those substances
with peroxidase activity [3, 7–9]. However, this study
was carried out in order to investigate its use in a
laboratory environment for the search and recovery of
latent bloodstains on items. It would be useful to investigate the effect of general background luminescence on
worn items and study the effect these potentially interfering substances may have on the visualisation of true
reactions. This could be combined with varying the size
of bloodstains, creating blood spatter for example, to
assess whether true reactions are distinguishable from
false positives or general background luminescence.