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Fast Quantitative LC-MS/MS Determination of Illicit Substances in Solid and Liquid Unknown Seized Samples.

ABSTRACT: Narcotic and psychotropic substances are natural, synthetic, or semisynthetic compounds that are present in both solid and liquid illicit products. The alterations effects on the central nervous system related to their use can be psycholeptic, psychoanaleptic, or psychodiseptic and are able to generate tolerance, addiction, or dependence phenomena, creating social and public order problems. In this scenario, the analytical evaluations that aim to determine these analytes in seized nonbiological samples, and which assume the character of judicial evidence, must meet high analytical requirements of reliability, transparency, and procedures uniformity at a national level. For the first time in the literature, the herein validated method is able to provide the simultaneous quantitative determination of 37 of the most common narcotic substances as well as the most commonly used excipients/adulterants found in seized illicit material. Additionally, the validated method can process both solid and liquid samples maintaining the precision and trueness levels (intraday and interday) in accordance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency international guidelines (<14.31 and <13.41%, respectively). Furthermore, it provides a simple and fast procedure for sample preparation using the dilute and shoot approach, exploiting the sensitivity and selectivity of the LC-MS/MS instrument configuration used and the signal acquisition in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode (both positive and negative polarization modes).

SUBMITTER: Merone GM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8674870 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:The emergence of novel drugs and the continuous expansion of the scope of the types of drugs under control have greatly increased requests for screening of a range of drugs in hair. Here, a multi-analyte method for the detection and quantification of 88 psychotropic drugs in the hair of addicts in drug abstinence was developed and fully validated using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Hair samples (25 mg) were washed, cut into pieces, cryogenically ground, and extracted in methanol. The extracted analytes were separated on an Allure PFPP column (100×2.1 mm, 5 mm i.d., Restek, USA) and analyzed by LC-MS/MS in multiple reaction monitoring mode. The limits of detection and limits of quantification ranged from 0.1 to 20 pg/mg and 0.2 to 50 pg/mg, respectively. The intra- and inter-assay precisions (RSD) of all analysis ranged from 0.9 to 14.9% and 1.9 to 15.9%, respectively. Accuracy values were 100±20%. The extraction recovery of quality control samples ranged from 50.9% to 99.6% for all analytes. The matrix effects for all analytes ranged from 46.8% to 99.7%. The method was successfully used to analyze 1,865 hair samples from addicts in drug rehabilitation at their own communities.. Among the samples, 129 cases were positive; the majority of positive cases were from males (78.29%), 92.25% of whom were over 35 years old. Traditional drugs, like methamphetamine and opioids, accounted for most positive cases, and 27 of the abstinence cases with a use history of methamphetamine were still positive. In addition to abused drugs, like methamphetamine, morphine, and cocaine, the sedative hypnotic and psychotherapeutic drugs, including clonazepam, alprazolam, estazolam, zolpidem, and quetiapine, were detected in 26% of the hair samples, suggesting that these addicts may have insomnia and mental problems such as depression and psychosis, probably due to the long-term effects of drugs and withdrawal reactions. Three synthetic cannabinoids were also detected in 4 (2.7%) cases. A total of 37 cases were positive for methadone, tramadol, and dextromethorphan, reflecting a new trend of alternative drug use when traditional drugs were not easy to obtain during the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Fast Quantitative LC-MS/MS Determination of Illicit Substances in Solid and Liquid Unknown Seized Samples.

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