Rapid Analysis of Drugs in Forensic Specimens Using the DPiMS-8060

Introduction

The analysis of drugs and toxic substances in forensics generally uses body fluid samples such as blood and urine due to their ease of handling and consideration for data collection. However, there are cases where the sampling of body fluid is difficult, such as from decomposed or charred bodies or hemorrhagic deaths. In such situations, organs may be used as samples instead. Since the instrumental analysis of organs requires complex pretreatment due to the complexity of the components within the organs, it takes time until the analysis results can be obtained. Researches until now have focused on speeding up and simplifying the pretreatment of organs using the QuEChERS method. In order to further shorten the time needed for organ analysis, this article introduces a direct analysis method of drug content in organs with minimal pretreatment and analysis time using the newly developed DPiMS-8060 mass spectrometer which combines probe electrospray ionization (PESI), a novel ionization method, with tandem mass spectrometry.

January 16, 2019 GMT