Screening for new psychoactive substances in hair by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

•Determination of various NPS in hair.•Minimal sample preparation.•High sensitivity/high throughput method.•Many drugs of different classed determined (synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, piperazines, ketamine). In the latest years, many new psychoactive substances (NPS) from several drug classes ha...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Chromatography A 2014-12, Vol.1372, p.145-156
Main Authors: Strano-Rossi, Sabina, Odoardi, Sara, Fisichella, Marco, Anzillotti, Luca, Gottardo, Rossella, Tagliaro, Franco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amphetamine-type substances
Biological and medical sciences
Chromatography
Drug addictions
Drugs
Forensic engineering
Forensic toxicology
Hair
Hair analysis
Ionization
Licenses
Markets
Mass spectrometry
Medical sciences
NPS
Synthetic cannabinoids
Toxicology
UHPLC–MS/MS
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Determination of various NPS in hair.•Minimal sample preparation.•High sensitivity/high throughput method.•Many drugs of different classed determined (synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, piperazines, ketamine). In the latest years, many new psychoactive substances (NPS) from several drug classes have appeared in the illicit drug market. Their rapid, sensitive and specific identification in biological fluids is hence of great concern for clinical and forensic toxicologists. Here is described a multi-analyte method for the determination of NPS, pertaining to different chemical classes (synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones, ketamine, piperazines and amphetamine-type substances—ATS) in human hair using ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS) in electrospray ionization mode. We focused on a sample preparation able to extract the different classes of NPS. About 30mg of hair was decontaminated and incubated overnight under sonication in different conditions depending on the type of analytes to be extracted: (a) with 300μL of HCOOH 0.1% for cathinones, piperazines and ATS; (b) with 300μL of MeOH for synthetic cannabinoids. Ten microliter of the extracts were then injected in UHPLC–ESI–MS/MS in MRM mode. The LODs varied from 2pg/mg to 20pg/mg. The method was linear in the range from the LOQ to 500pg/mg and showed acceptable precision (%RSD
ISSN:0021-9673
DOI:10.1016/j.chroma.2014.10.106