Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Justice, PR China (Shanghai Key laboratory of Forensic Medicine), Shanghai, 200063.
J Anal Toxicol. 2013 Apr;37(3):166-74. doi: 10.1093/jat/bks093. Epub 2013 Jan 12.
Heroin is a highly addictive drug, and heroin abuse is considered to be a serious criminal act. The major metabolite of heroin, morphine, can usually be detected as evidence of heroin abuse. However, it is difficult to determine heroin use when morphine and codeine are both detected, because codeine use will also result in the presence of morphine in urine. Therefore, it is important to distinguish heroin abuse from codeine administration. In this study, urine samples from 21 volunteers with various ingestion patterns of a compound codeine phosphate oral solution were used as negative controls, and urine samples from 89 alleged heroin users were used as positive controls. Urine from single and multiple doses of codeine administration were collected at different time points for a systematic comparison. After protein precipitation, the urine samples were analyzed for the presence of free morphine, free codeine and their metabolites by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The method of percentiles, with median and standard interquartile ranges, was used to describe and analyze the data based on the normality of the distribution. The ratios of concentration of morphine and morphine to codeine were found to be the possible criteria to distinguish heroin users from codeine users in Chinese people.
海洛因是一种高度成瘾的药物，滥用海洛因被视为严重的犯罪行为。海洛因的主要代谢物吗啡通常可作为海洛因滥用的证据检测出来。然而，当同时检测到吗啡和可待因时，很难确定是否使用过海洛因，因为可待因的使用也会导致尿液中出现吗啡。因此，区分海洛因滥用和可待因给药非常重要。在这项研究中，将 21 名具有不同复方磷酸可待因口服液摄入模式的志愿者的尿液样本作为阴性对照，将 89 名疑似海洛因使用者的尿液样本作为阳性对照。收集单次和多次剂量可待因给药后的尿液样本，在不同时间点进行系统比较。经过蛋白沉淀后，通过超高效液相色谱-串联质谱法分析尿液中游离吗啡、游离可待因及其代谢物的存在情况。基于数据分布的正态性，采用中位数和四分位间距来描述和分析数据。研究发现，吗啡和吗啡与可待因浓度比值可能是区分中国人中海洛因使用者和可待因使用者的标准。
