Multi-target methodology for the screening of blood specimens in drug-facilitated sexual assault cases

The forensic investigation of drug-facilitated sexual assaults (DFSA) requires the toxicological examination of biological matrices to detect possible substances in victims. Whole blood is an important sample since it is the only one available for analysis in a considerable percentage of cases. A ne...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Prego Meleiro, Pablo, Quintela Jorge, Óscar, Montalvo, Gemma, García-Ruiz, Carmen
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/117373
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/117373
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:615.4
615.9
Drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA)
Drug-facilitated crime (DFC)
Blood
Protein precipitation
Phospholipid removal
Multi.target screening
Farmacología (Farmacia)
Toxicología (Farmacia)
32 Ciencias Médicas
Descripción
Sumario:The forensic investigation of drug-facilitated sexual assaults (DFSA) requires the toxicological examination of biological matrices to detect possible substances in victims. Whole blood is an important sample since it is the only one available for analysis in a considerable percentage of cases. A new screening methodology was developed for the detection of 96 compounds related to DFSA in blood. Sample treatment was based on a procedure combining protein precipitation and phospholipid removal before HPLC-MS/MS analysis. The new method operates in scheduled multiple reaction monitoring (sMRM) mode and uses the hybrid operating of the third quadrupole as an ion trap. The blood samples preparation was studied comparing four different protein precipitation treatments and two widely used extraction techniques as solid phase extraction and liquid-liquid extraction. The analytical performance of the screening method was evaluated in terms of selectivity and limits of detection. Finally, successful results were obtained applying the new method to the analysis of fifteen samples from real cases of the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences.