Citation

Niebel A, Westendorf L, Krumbiegel F, Hartwig S, Parr MK, Tsokos M. Drug Test. Anal. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/dta.3150

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Hair samples are frequently analyzed in order to characterize consumption patterns of drugs. However, the interpretation of new psychoactive substance (NPS) findings in hair remains difficult because of lacking data for comparison. In this study, selected postmortem hair samples (n = 1203) from 2008 to 2020 were reanalyzed for synthetic cathinones, piperazines, phenethylamines, hallucinogens, benzodiazepines and opioids to evaluate prevalence data and concentration ranges. Hair samples were extracted using a two-step extraction procedure and analyzed using a validated liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method. Overall new psychoactive substances were detected in 381 cases (31.6 %). Many cases were tested positive for more than one NPS in the same time span. A variety of NPS with a large range of concentrations was observed. For better comparability and interpretation of positive cases in routine work, quantitation data for 13 NPS were calculated as percentiles. The most frequently detected NPS in this study were N-ethylamphetamine, α-pyrrolidinovalerophenone, mephedrone, benzedrone, metamfepramone and 4-fluoroamphetamine. In conclusion, a high prevalence of these drugs was observed from postmortem hair samples. The results show a growing use of many different NPS by mainly young drug-using adults. Consequently, NPS screening procedures should be included in forensic toxicology. Our quantitative data may support other toxicologists in their assessment of NPS hair concentrations.

Language: en

Keywords

new psychoactive substances (NPS); hair concentrations; LC-MS/MS; postmortem hair analysis; prevalence data