Sensitive screening of abused drugs in dried blood samples using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-ion booster-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry

A liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method for the determination of cocaine and metabolites in blood and in dried blood spots collected from postmortem samples and evaluation of the stability over a 3‐month period

“…During the last decade, several authors developed methods for the detection and quantification of substances of forensic toxicology interest, such as drugs of abuse [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and psychoactive substances 14,15 in DBS. The major problem related to forensic analyses is the interpretation of quantitative results.…”

Quantification of cocaine and cocaine metabolites in dried blood spots from a controlled administration study using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

“…If a defined volume of blood is brought onto specimen collection paper, samples with a high HCT will consequently spread out less and form smaller spots whereas low HCT samples will form bigger spots. 23,26,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] However, these methods include only a few of the metabolites, such as BE 23,38 ; BE and nor-COC 31 ; BE and COC-Et 36 ; BE, EME, and COC-Et 8,26,39 ; or only BE without COC determination. Although in principle full spot analysis can cope with this, this requires volumetric disposition of a blood drop, which is impractical and/or requires the use of specialized devices.…”

“…22 The influence of HCT on the result is compound-dependent and needs to be assessed during method validation. 31,37,40 Our goal was to develop a comprehensive and sensitive method based on HPLC-MS/MS for the quantification of COC and its metabolites BE, EME, nor-COC, COC-Et, and OH-BE enabling a detailed overview of COC and its metabolites in capillary DBS. 28,29 Some analytes may also exhibit concentration differences between venous and capillary blood, which should be taken into account when comparing results from capillary DBS to reference values obtained from venous blood.…”

“…20,30 Several methods for the determination of COC and its metabolites in dried matrices have been published. 23,26,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] However, these methods include only a few of the metabolites, such as BE 23,38 ; BE and nor-COC 31 ; BE and COC-Et 36 ; BE, EME, and COC-Et 8,26,39 ; or only BE without COC determination. 32,33 Additionally, some of the methods were only intended as a qualitative screening.…”

“…17,32,39 With the exception of the initial study by Henderson et al, which used a modified radioimmunoassay, 32 all published methods used high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to a variety of detectors, such as spectrofluorimetry (Fluo), 36 tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), 8,17,26,33,35,39 or high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). 31,37,40 Our goal was to develop a comprehensive and sensitive method based on HPLC-MS/MS for the quantification of COC and its metabolites BE, EME, nor-COC, COC-Et, and OH-BE enabling a detailed overview of COC and its metabolites in capillary DBS. The primary purpose of this method was the analysis of DBS samples obtained during a controlled administration study of COC to healthy volunteers to investigate the disposition of COC and its metabolites in capillary DBS.…”