Abstract
The determination at low concentrations of common psychotropic drugs is increasingly requested in hair samples for the retrospective investigation of habitual drug abuse and dependence as well as in other toxicological investigations. The dramatic improvements of the instrumentation based on liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) make the detection of tiny amounts of almost whatever drug is in hair possible, even after single-dose intake. Therefore, LC-MS/MS is gradually replacing gas chromatographic techniques in both screening and confirmation procedures, and is increasingly acknowledged as the technique of choice for hair analysis. We describe a simple procedure for the quantitative determination in hair samples of 15 common drugs of abuse, or metabolites, based on methanol extraction and direct analysis by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Kintz P, Salomone A, Vincenti M (2015) Hair analysis in clinical and forensic toxicology. Academic, Cambridge
Vincenti M, Salomone A, Gerace E, Pirro V (2013) Role of LC-MS/MS in hair testing for the determination of common drugs of abuse and other psychoactive drugs. Bioanalysis 5:1919–1938
Vincenti M, Salomone A, Gerace E, Pirro V (2012) Application of mass spectrometry to hair analysis for forensic toxicological investigations. Mass Spectrom Rev 32:312–332
Barbosa J, Faria J, Carvalho F, Pedro M, Queirós O, Moreira R, Dinis-Oliveira RJ (2013) Hair as an alternative matrix in bioanalysis. Bioanalysis 5:895–914
Pragst F, Balikova M (2006) State of the art in hair analysis for detection of drug and alcohol abuse. Clin Chim Acta 370:17–49
Di Corcia D, D’Urso F, Gerace E, Salomone A, Vincenti M (2012) Simultaneous determination in hair of multiclass drugs of abuse (including THC) by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. J Chromatogr B 899:154–159
Baciu T, Borrull F, Aguilar C, Calull M (2015) Recent trends in analytical methods and separation techniques for drugs of abuse in hair. Anal Chim Acta 856:1–26
Saito K, Saito R, Kikuchi Y, Iwasaki Y, Ito R, Nakazawa H (2011) Analysis of drugs of abuse in biological specimens. J Health Sci 57:472–487
EC (2002) Commission decision 2002/657/EC of 12 August 2002 implementing council directive 96/23/EC concerning the performance of analytical methods and the interpretation of results. Off J Eur Commun L221:8–36
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Di Corcia, D., Salomone, A., Gerace, E. (2018). Analysis of Drugs of Abuse in Hair Samples by Ultrahigh-Performance Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). In: Musah, R. (eds) Analysis of Drugs of Abuse. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1810. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8579-1_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8579-1_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-8578-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-8579-1
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols