Multicomponent LC–MS/MS screening method for detection of new psychoactive drugs, legal highs, in urine—Experience from the Swedish population

High-throughput screening for new psychoactive substances (NPS) in whole blood by DLLME extraction and UHPLC–MS/MS analysis

“…Despite the diffusion of NPS in the illicit market, to date few are the analytical methods dealing with the multianalyte screening of these compounds in biological fluids, probably due to the relative new occurrence of the phenomenon. Published methods are mainly LC-MS/MS applications and deal with NPS in different biological samples: oral fluid [24,41], hair [25,[42][43][44], urine [19,26,27,45,46], blood [28,47,48], serum [29,30]. The methods available in the literature generally deal with a single class of analytes, and are performed after extraction of samples by SPME, SPE, or liquid/liquid extraction.…”

“…Furthermore, also in case of a positive result, the identification of the actual substance that can cross-react with the immunoassay must be carried out by a chromatographic/mass spectrometric technique, able to distinguish among similar structures and isomers. To overcome this problem, some screening methods based on chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry have been proposed [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. The use of sophisticated techniques such as LC-MS/MS or GC-MS requires a clean-up step before the instrument analysis, especially when it is performed on highly complex matrices like blood.…”

Determination of mitragynine in urine matrices by bar adsorptive microextraction and HPLC analysis

“…To date, several studies of Kratom characterization and pharmacokinetic in biological fluids have been reported [5,7,8]. However, there is still a lack of suitable analytical methodologies for the detection and quantification of MG in routine analysis [9][10][11].…”

New Synthetic Drugs in Addictovigilance

“…However the fairly unspecific mass spectra and frequently low concentrations in biological fluids, entailing the need for sophisticated equipment, as well as the constant arrivals of new substances, make analysis difficult and time-consuming. [4,5] Two hundred and fifteen new substances have been notified via the EU member states Early Warning System since 2005, of which 46 in 2011 and 73 in 2012, so that they have become a key phenomenon in drug use in Europe. [6] Likewise, in the French Addictovigilance networks and Poison Control centres, as well as in forensic toxicology laboratories, since the first instances of use of these drugs in the years following 2010, other notifications have corroborated the use of these substances on French national territory.…”