The identification of a product absorbed by an opiate consumer is sometimes problematic since there is no specific biomarker for all molecules. We developed an ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry technique which allows the identification and the quantification of 25 opiates in plasma. The sample preparation consists in a solid-phase extraction on Oasis MCX cartridges (Waters). The method has been validated according to FDA criteria completely for 21 substances and with some reservations for the remaining 4 analytes. This method has been applied to 80 patients treated at the University Hospital of Liege for whom the screening of opiates was positive. The identification of the product consumed was effective in 86% of cases.
Keywords: LC-MS; analytical validation; identification; opiates; plasma.