Distinction among eight opiate drugs in urine by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.
Opiates are commonly abused substances, and forensic urine drug-testing for them requires gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) confirmation. There are also medical reasons to test urine for opiates, and confirmation procedures other than GC-MS are often used for medical drug-testing. A thin-layer chromatographic (TLC) method distinguishes morphine, acetylmorphine, hydromorphone, oxymorphone, codeine, dihydrocodeine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone in clinical specimens. In certain clinical circumstances, GC-MS confirmation is requested for opiates identified by TLC, but, to our knowledge, no previous report examines all of the above opiates in a single GC-MS procedure. We find that they can be distinguished by GC-MS analyses of trimethylsilyl (TMS) ether derivatives, and identities of 6-keto opiates can be further confirmed by GC-MS analysis of methoxime (MO)-TMS derivatives. Inclusion of deuterium-labeled internal standards permits identification of the opiates in urine at concentrations below the TLC cutoff level of 600 ng/ml, and the GC-MS assay is linear over a concentration range that spans that level. This GC-MS procedure has proved useful as a third-stage identification step in a medical drug-testing sequence involving prior immunoassay and TLC.
Nowatzke
W
W
Department of Pathology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Zeng
J
J
Saunders
A
A
Bohrer
A
A
Koenig
J
J
Turk
J
J
D003061:Codeine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000652:urine; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D006801:Humans; D006853:Hydrocodone / Q000652:urine; D004091:Hydromorphone / Q000652:urine; D015394:Molecular Structure; D009020:Morphine / Q000652:urine; D009022:Morphine Derivatives / Q000652:urine; D009294:Narcotics / Q000737:chemistry / Q000652:urine*; D010098:Oxycodone / Q000652:urine; D010111:Oxymorphone / Q000652:urine
D009022:Morphine Derivatives; D009294:Narcotics; D006853:Hydrocodone; D009020:Morphine; D010111:Oxymorphone; D010098:Oxycodone; C026979:6-O-monoacetylmorphine; C014481:dihydrocodeine; D004091:Hydromorphone; D003061:Codeine