Analysis of Synthetic Opiates and Novel Analgesics in Urine using SPE and HPLCMS/ MS

Summary:

Opiate abuse is drastically on the rise in the United States. In addition to traditional naturally occurring opiate compounds, forensic toxicologists also need the ability to rapidly identify synthetic opioid-like drugs. Many of these compounds present as heroin-like overdoses in death investigation cases, but traditional basic drug extractions may unassumingly wash the target compounds off of the SPE column prior to elution.

Often manufactured overseas and shipped to the United States illegally, these compounds have varying levels of potency when compared to morphine (Table 1). Immunoassays are not reliable screening tools for these designer drugs/metabolites, and it’s difficult for mass spectrometry libraries to keep up with their constantly changing structures.