Systematic toxicological analysis of drugs and poisons in biosamples by hyphenated chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques.
The introduction of hyphenated chromatographic-spectroscopic techniques represented a substantial step-forward for Systematic Toxicological Analysis (STA), increasing the amount and quality of information obtainable from the analysis of a biological sample, and enhancing the possibilities of identifying unknown drugs and poisons. STA methods based either on GC-MS or on HPLC-UV published in the last decade are reviewed in this paper. The different analytical phases, i.e. sample preparation (pretreatment, extraction, derivatisation), chromatographic separation and detection/identification are examined in detail in order to emphasise the complementarity of the two approaches. In addition, the first STA method based on HPLC-MS is illustrated and some applications of TLC-UV to drug screening are also described. Finally, an overview of semi- and fully-automated STA methods is given.
Polettini
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Department of Legal Medicine and Public Health, University of Pavia, Italy. apole@unipv.it
D002845:Chromatography / Q000379:methods*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D002855:Chromatography, Thin Layer; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D006801:Humans; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000032:analysis*; D011042:Poisons / Q000032:analysis*; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D014116:Toxicology
D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D011042:Poisons