Citation

Langel K, Gunnar T, Ariniemi K, Rajamäki O, Lillsunde PM. J. Chromatogr. B Analyt. Technol. Biomed. Life Sci. 2011; 879(13-14): 859-870.

Affiliation

National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland. kaarina.langel@thl.fi

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jchromb.2011.02.027

PMID

21411382

Abstract

Oral fluid is of increasing interest as an alternative sample matrix in drugs of abuse analysis. Compared to the conventional sample matrix blood, sample volumes of oral fluid are smaller and the concentrations of some drugs can be much lower. This imposes some restrictions on the analysis method, which has to be able to detect and quantify multiple analytes from a small sample volume at low concentrations. A sensitive multi-component method for quantitative determination of 50 drug compounds from oral fluid samples collected with the StatSure SalivaSampler™ device was developed. The compounds analysed include cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, opioids, benzodiazepines and other psychoactive medicines. Both liquid-liquid-extraction (LLE) and solid-phase-extraction (SPE) are employed in the sample pre-treatment and the samples are analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) with the mass selective detector (MSD) operating in either electron ionization (EI) or negative-ion chemical ionization (NICI) mode. The method was fully validated, and the validated parameters included linearity, selectivity, accuracy, precision, and extraction efficiency. Stability of the collected samples during storage at -18°C was also studied, and even after over a year's storage all analyte concentrations were more than 60% of the original concentrations. The described method is suitable for routine analysis of oral fluid samples and it has been applied to analysis of more than 4000 oral fluid samples collected anonymously from volunteer road users in Finland during 2007-2009 as a part of the EU project DRUID (Driving under the Influence of Drugs, Alcohol and Medicines). At the moment the developed method is the most comprehensive validated analysis method for oral fluid samples.

Language: en