a Institut de Médecine légale , Strasbourg , France.
b X-Pertise Consulting , Oberhausbergen , France.
Subst Use Misuse. 2018 Oct 15;53(12):2093-2098. doi: 10.1080/10826084.2018.1451893. Epub 2018 Mar 22.
The detection and analysis of drugs in hair has progressively emerged as a consequence of the enhanced sensitivity of analytical techniques used in forensic toxicology; a greater advantage in using this matrix respect to classical ones (i.e., urine and blood) is an easier and noninvasive sample collection, even when the careful supervision of law-enforcement officers is required to avoid the risk that the sample may be adulterated or replaced. Moreover, according to the length of the hair, the history of drug exposure can be retrospectively monitored from few weeks up to months or years since sample collection.
Given the potential negative effects of pregabalin, an antiepileptic and analgesic drug with a high risk of misuse and abuse, the laboratory was asked to test for the drug in hair.
A new ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry was developed. The method involves incubation of 25 mg of cut hair in acetonitrile for 2 h in an ultrasonic bath and separation on an Acquity HSS C18 column (150 × 2.1 mm × 1.8 µm) maintained at 50°C in a thermostatically controlled oven. A gradient elution was performed.
The method was fully validated according to international standards. The limit of quantitation of the test was 10 pg/mg. Five authentic cases of pregabalin in hair segments were tested using the method and the results were in the range 17-1487 pg/mg.
This new method was found suitable to monitor both patients under pregabalin therapy and dependent subjects.
由于法医毒理学中分析技术的灵敏度不断提高，对头发中药物的检测和分析逐渐出现；与经典基质（即尿液和血液）相比，使用这种基质有一个更大的优势，即更容易且非侵入性地采集样本，即使需要执法人员的仔细监督，以避免样本被篡改或替换的风险。此外，根据头发的长度，可以从采集样本后的数周到数月甚至数年回溯性监测药物暴露史。
鉴于普瑞巴林（一种具有高度误用和滥用风险的抗癫痫和镇痛药）可能产生的负面影响，实验室被要求对头发中的药物进行检测。
开发了一种新的超高效液相色谱-串联质谱法。该方法涉及将 25mg 剪断的头发在乙腈中孵育 2 小时，在超声浴中进行，并在保持在 50°C 的 Thermo 恒温控制箱中的 Acquity HSS C18 柱（150×2.1mm×1.8μm）上进行分离。采用梯度洗脱。
该方法完全按照国际标准进行了验证。测试的定量限为 10pg/mg。使用该方法测试了 5 例真实的头发中普瑞巴林案例，结果在 17-1487pg/mg 范围内。
该新方法被发现适合监测接受普瑞巴林治疗的患者和依赖患者。
