Determination of common drugs of abuse in body fluids using one isolation procedure and liquid chromatography--atmospheric-pressure chemical-ionization mass spectromery.

A single, universal solid-phase extraction method using C18 cartridges efficiently extracts a wide range of opiate agonists, cocaine metabolites, and LSD from blood, serum, urine, and other biological fluids. The method achieves high recoveries for most drugs and produces clean extracts suitable for analysis by liquid chromatography coupled with atmospheric-pressure chemical-ionization mass spectrometry. The procedure was developed for routine forensic toxicology casework and demonstrates broad applicability across different drug classes and biological matrices.

Study at a glance

Abstract

A method for determining opiate agonists (morphine, morphine-3-glucuronide, morphine-6-glucuronide, 6-monoacetylmorphine, codeine, codeine-6-glucuronide, dihydrocodeine, dihydromorphine, buprenorphine, methadone, tramadol, and ibogaine), cocaine and its metabolites (benzoylecgonine and ecgonine methyl ester) and lysergic acid diethylamide in serum, blood, urine and other biological matrices is presented. Aliquots (0.5-1.5 mL) of biological fluids were spiked with appropriate deuterated internal standards and extracted using a common solid-phase extraction method (C18 cartridges). The extracts were subjected to liquid chromatographic-atmospheric-pressure chemical-ionization mass spectrometric examination using selected ion monitoring procedures. These procedures were developed after analysis of full-scan mass spectra of examined compounds. The extraction method appeared very universal; the recoveries were high for almost all drugs and the extracts were very clean. The procedure was applied for routine forensic casework.