Development of Drug Testing by Direct Analysis of Equine Hair Using Imaging Mass Microscopy with iMScope TRIO™

Introduction

In the field of forensics, hair is currently attracting attention along with urine for drug test samples. The reason for this is that, generally, drugs have to be detected as metabolites in urine, so detection is not feasible if no urine sample can be collected while they are being eliminated. On the other hand, drugs in hair are absorbed into the hair without being metabolized and stay there for a long time. That is to say, while with urine the drug may be lost by being metabolized and excreted within a few days after the last intake, hair has the characteristic that the intake history is preserved in it for the long term, provided the hair is not cut. Currently, the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and liquid chromatographic mass spectrometer (LC-MS) are the common means that have been put into practical use as the new measurement methods for these test samples. After washing and drying, the collected hair is cut to a length of about 5 mm to 1 cm, and analyzed through a process of extracting the drug from each of the cut hairs and purifying it. Human hair grows at a rate of 1 cm per month on average, so if the position of a hair sample where the detection was made can be identified, we can determine "when", "what kind of drug" and "how much" was in circulation. Note that literature by Ono, Mizuno et al. serves as reference for hair analysis in the field of forensic medicine, including the sample pretreatment method described above.

September 20, 2019 GMT