title: Recent trends in analytical methods and separation techniques for drugs of abuse in hair.
abstract: Hair analysis of drugs of abuse has been a subject of growing interest from a clinical, social and forensic perspective for years because of the broad time detection window after intake in comparison to urine and blood analysis. Over the last few years, hair analysis has gained increasing attention and recognition for the retrospective investigation of drug abuse in a wide variety of contexts, shown by the large number of applications developed. This review aims to provide an overview of the state of the art and the latest trends used in the literature from 2005 to the present in the analysis of drugs of abuse in hair, with a special focus on separation analytical techniques and their hyphenation with mass spectrometry detection. The most recently introduced sample preparation techniques are also addressed in this paper. The main strengths and weaknesses of all of these approaches are critically discussed by means of relevant applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Sescelades Campus, Marcel·lí Domingo, s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Baciu
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Sescelades Campus, Marcel·lí Domingo, s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Borrull
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Sescelades Campus, Marcel·lí Domingo, s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain. Electronic address: carme.aguilar@urv.cat.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Aguilar
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Sescelades Campus, Marcel·lí Domingo, s/n, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Calull
mesh_terms: D053000:Analytic Sample Preparation Methods; D005591:Chemical Fractionation / Q000379:methods*; D002623:Chemistry Techniques, Analytical / Q000379:methods*; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D013048:Specimen Handling; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Capillary electrophoresis; Drug of abuse; Gas chromatography; Hair analysis; Liquid chromatography; Sample preparation