A novel screening method for 64 new psychoactive substances and 5 amphetamines in blood by LC-MS/MS and application to real cases

Abstract

Identification and quantification of new psychoactive substances (NPS), both in biological and non-biological samples, represent a hard challenge for forensic toxicologists. NPS are increasingly emerging on illegal drug market. Many cases of co-consumption of NPS and other substances have also been reported. Hence, the development of analytical methods aiming at the detection of a broad-spectrum of compounds (NPS and "traditional" drugs) could be helpful. In this paper, a fully validated screening method in blood for the simultaneous detection of 69 substances, including 64 NPS (28 synthetic cannabinoids, 19 synthetic cathinones, 5 phenethylamines, 3 indanes, 2 piperazines, 2 tryptamines, 2 phencyclidine, methoxetamine, ketamine and its metabolite) and 5 amphetamines (amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA, MDA, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-ethylamphetamine - MDEA-) by a dynamic multiple reaction monitoring analysis through liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is described. This method is very fast, easy to perform and cheap as it only requires the deproteinization of 200μL of blood sample with acetonitrile. The chromatographic separation is achieved with a C18 column. The analysis is very sensitive, with limits of quantification ranging from 0.1 to 0.5ng/mL. The method is linear from 1 to 100ng/mL and the coefficient of determination (R(2)) was always above 0.9900. Precision and accuracy were acceptable at any quality control level and recovery efficiency range was 72-110%. Matrix effects did not negatively affect the analytical sensitivity. This method was successfully applied to three real cases, allowing identification and quantification of: mephedrone and methamphetamine (post-mortem); ketamine, MDMA and MDA (post-mortem); AB-FUBINACA (ante-mortem).

Keywords: Amphetamines; Blood screening; LC–MS/MS; NPS; NPS intoxication cases.