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Fast screening of 88 pharmaceutical drugs and metabolites in whole blood by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

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Abstract

Forensic investigations involving acute or lethal intoxication, drug-facilitated sexual assault, driving or workplace impairment frequently require the analysis of fresh or postmortem blood samples to check out a wide variety of pharmaceutical and illicit drugs, even after single-dose consumption. A sensitive and selective ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS) screening method was developed for fast screening of 88 psychoactive drugs and metabolites in blood samples, including the ones most frequently involved in acute intoxications and forensic investigations in Italy. The new method allows short sample processing and analysis time (the whole procedure can be accomplished in less than 30 min) together with the simultaneous monitoring of a large number of pharmaceutical substances. These features represent crucial factors in the approach of acute intoxications, when the patient requires urgent and appropriate therapy. Blood sample treatment was limited to protein precipitation. Two UHPLC–MS/MS runs in positive and negative electrospray ionization modes were performed. The data were acquired at unit mass resolution in the selected reaction monitoring mode. According to international guidelines, linearity range, precision, trueness, detection and quantification limits, recovery, selectivity, specificity, carryover, and matrix effect phenomena were determined. Despite the limited sample purification and the inherent decreased chance of eliminating any potential interference, the present multiresidue screening method proved extremely effective and sensitive, allowing the detection of all tested drugs, even those belonging to structurally different classes of substances. Moreover, the developed method is easily susceptible to further expansion to encompass more drugs, either new or those becoming important for criminal investigation. This protocol was also applied to the analysis of authentic blood samples collected from victims of various crimes in routine casework, whose relevance in forensic investigations is presented in five cases.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr. Sergio Pellegrino for his keen cooperation and the laboratory personnel for preparing the samples. The generous financial contribution for renovating analytical instrumentation from the Compagnia di San Paolo (Turin, Italy) is gratefully acknowledged (Grant 411/PV-2009.1993). The authors are also indebted to the Regione Piemonte for its continuous financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Regionale Antidoping e di Tossicologia “A. Bertinaria”, Regione Gonzole 10/1, Orbassano, 10043, Turin, Italy

    Marco Vincenti, Enrico Gerace, Valentina Pirro, Daniele Di Corcia & Alberto Salomone

  2. Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Torino, via Pietro Giuria 7, 10125, Turin, Italy

    Marco Vincenti, Daniele Cavanna & Valentina Pirro

  3. A.O. Ordine Mauriziano, Largo F. Turati 62, 10128, Turin, Italy

    Michele Petrarulo

Authors
  1. Marco Vincenti
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  2. Daniele Cavanna
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  3. Enrico Gerace
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  4. Valentina Pirro
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  5. Michele Petrarulo
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  6. Daniele Di Corcia
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  7. Alberto Salomone
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alberto Salomone.

Additional information

Published in the special issue Analytical Science in Italy with guest editor Aldo Roda.

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Vincenti, M., Cavanna, D., Gerace, E. et al. Fast screening of 88 pharmaceutical drugs and metabolites in whole blood by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. Anal Bioanal Chem 405, 863–879 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-012-6403-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-012-6403-y

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