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. 2025 May 8:14:103353.
doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2025.103353. eCollection 2025 Jun.

Modified QuEChERS for antiepileptic drugs detection in forensic toxicology

Ahmad Shekari  1 , Jalal Hassan  1 , Mohammad Kazem Koohi  1 , Masoud Ghadipasha  2 , Maryam Akhgari  2
Affiliations

Modified QuEChERS for antiepileptic drugs detection in forensic toxicology

Ahmad Shekari et al. MethodsX. .

Abstract

This study aims to concurrently assess the blood concentrations of antiepileptic drugs including phenobarbital, carbamazepine, primidone, phenytoin in post-mortem samples through the application modified QuEChERS extraction. The serum samples were extracted and then purified using magnesium sulfate, PSA, and C18 sorbents and subsequently analyzed using HPLC/UV. One influencing parameter on the extraction process was the pH of sample. Extraction recoveries were in the range of 42-97 % for all analytes. The findings reveal that the QuEChERS method offers a higher extraction efficiency, yielding cleaner samples with greater purity and preferred choice for drug analysis in forensic toxicology. The results showed that the proposed technique has a good analytical efficiency and the accuracy of work is in the average range of 70-85 %. The equation of linear calibration curve was obtained with regression coefficient > 0.99. Detection limits were in the range of 0.21-0.38 ng/mL.•This method is inexpensive and fast for determination of antiepileptic drugs in serum•This method has high thought of sample determination.•This method is green chemistry method.

Keywords: Antiepileptic drugs; Electrochemiluminescence; HPLC; Modified QuEChERS; QuEChERS.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image, graphical abstract
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Effect of pH on extraction of drugs by proposed extraction method, Concentration = 50 ng/mL in serum, pH = 6 (green), 7.5 (red), and 9 (blue).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Chromatogram of 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, 25, 50, and 100, ng/mL spiked concentration in serum extracted by the QuEChERS Method.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Chromatogram obtained for sample no. 30,054.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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