The role of liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry in the determination of heroin and related opioids in biological fluids

✍ Scribed by Simona Pichini; Ilaria Altieri; Manuela Pellegrini; Piergiorgio Zuccaro; Roberta Pacifici

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 181 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0277-7037
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1098-2787(1999)18:2<119::aid-mas2>3.0.co;2-z

✦ Synopsis

The opioid most commonly sold in the illicit market is heroin. This substance, classi®ed as an analgesic narcotic drug, has an extremely short half-life, and it is rapidly metabolized to 6monoacetyl-morphine and further to morphine. Morphine is principally metabolized by conjugation to morphine-3 and morphine-6 glucuronides. Morphine itself is a potent analgesic that is frequently used in the pharmacological intervention of cancer pain. The toxicological and clinical evaluation of heroin and morphine have stimulated pharmacokinetic studies in human and animal models. Although a number of methods exist to determine opiates and their metabolites, liquid chromatography (LC) appears to be the technique that can separate without any pretreatment the lipophilic and the hydrophilic analytes of the complete metabolic pro®le of heroin and/or morphine. Moreover, mass spectrometry (MS) used as a detector for liquid chromatography is unique, because it offers universality and selectivity. Furthermore, efforts have been made to develop LC/MS interfaces that could overcome the previous problem of poor sensitivity. For this reason, in recent years LC combined with MS has been applied to the analysis of opiates-parent drugs and metabolites-in biological ¯uids. This article reviews the existing literature on the determination, using liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, of opiate metabolites found in different biological matrices after the administration of the parent compounds.