Orange County Crime Lab, Orange County Sheriff's-Coroners Department, 320 N flower St., Santa Ana, CA 92703, USA.
Orange County Crime Lab, Orange County Sheriff's-Coroners Department, 320 N flower St., Santa Ana, CA 92703, USA.
Forensic Sci Int. 2022 May;334:111246. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2022.111246. Epub 2022 Mar 3.
A novel forensic method was developed to quantitate 39 drugs of toxicological interest for ante-mortem and postmortem analysis. This method was created to combine and replace four existing quantitation methods as well as add three additional compounds of interest and serves to drastically increase the efficiency of the criminalists and reduce the case backlog. The method is currently applied to ante-mortem blood, postmortem blood, urine, liver, brain, and gastric contents.
The extraction was performed by using a protein precipitation and DPX WAX-S tips with analysis on a Waters® i-class Acquity ultra-performance liquid chromatography with a Phenomenex Kinetex® Column (1.7 µm Biphenyl Å, 2.1 ×100 mm) followed by a Waters® XeVo-TQS tandem mass spectrometer using positive electrospray ionization in multiple reaction monitor mode. The sample volume required for analysis was 0.5 mL, or 0.5 g, an improvement from 4 mL when performing previous methods utilized in the laboratory.
The improved method incorporated the 2017 recommended cut-offs for toxicological investigation of driving under the influence of drugs and was validated following the SWGTOX and ANSI/ASB guidelines of method validation. The advantages of analyzing low volume cases and/or detecting drugs previously outside the laboratory's scope of analysis, (such as gabapentin, pregabalin and baclofen) will be presented in two case studies.
The multi-drug quantitation method allowed for the analysis of 39 drugs including a hydrolysis step, if needed, with only 0.5 mL or 0.5 g of sample. The method condensed two previously un-validated quantitative methods and two additional qualitative methods, which detected many commonly seen drugs, all into a single method. Three additional analytes of interest, gabapentin, pregabalin and baclofen, which it had previously been unable to detect, were added to the new method. The added benefit of these new drugs added both the coroner's investigators in cause of death determination and driving under the influence of drugs investigation especially with the high prevalence of gabapentin.
开发了一种新的法医方法来定量分析 39 种毒理学感兴趣的药物，用于生前和死后分析。该方法的创建旨在结合和取代四种现有的定量方法，并增加三种额外的感兴趣化合物，旨在极大地提高法医学家的效率并减少案件积压。该方法目前应用于生前血液、死后血液、尿液、肝脏、大脑和胃内容物。
通过使用蛋白质沉淀和 DPX WAX-S 吸头进行提取，在 Waters® i-class Acquity 超高效液相色谱仪上进行分析，采用 Phenomenex Kinetex® 柱（1.7 µm 联苯 Å，2.1×100mm），然后在 Waters® XeVo-TQS 串联质谱仪上采用正电喷雾电离多反应监测模式进行分析。分析所需的样品体积为 0.5 mL 或 0.5 g，比实验室中使用以前的方法时的 4 mL 有所改进。
改进后的方法纳入了 2017 年推荐的药物影响驾驶的毒理学调查截止值，并按照 SWGTOX 和 ANSI/ASB 方法验证指南进行了验证。将在两个案例研究中介绍分析低体积案例和/或检测实验室分析范围外的药物（如加巴喷丁、普瑞巴林和巴氯芬）的优势。
多药物定量方法允许分析 39 种药物，包括如果需要水解步骤，只需 0.5 mL 或 0.5 g 样品。该方法将两种以前未经验证的定量方法和两种额外的定性方法（检测许多常见的药物）合并为一种方法。还向新方法中添加了三种额外的感兴趣的分析物，即加巴喷丁、普瑞巴林和巴氯芬，这些分析物以前无法检测到。这些新药的加入增加了法医在死因确定和药物影响驾驶调查中的作用，特别是在加巴喷丁高发的情况下。
