A systematic review on sensing techniques for drug- facilitated sexual assaults (DFSA) monitoring

Abstract

The use of recreational substances in drug-facilitated sexual assaults (DFSA) has drawn attention during the last few decades and has become a significant problem worldwide. Public awareness in context to DFSA is restricted, therefore early recognition and management of such crucial cases became problems for non-forensic professionals and on-spot investigators. Although forensic laboratories are using conventional chromatographic and spectroscopic methods for DFSA drug detection, expertise requirement in result analysis and time consuming detection method always calls for rapid and on-spot sensing platform. Therefore, numerous researches have been focused on developing sensors for sensitive DFSA associated drug detection. In this review, we summarize previous technological advancements in sensor development for on-spot DFSA drug detection and futuristic potential approaches for rapid analytical methods. Our study focuses on sensing of DFSA drugs, namely Rohypnol® (flunitrazepam), Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate (GHB) and ketamine followed by potential limitations for real life implementations of the sensors. In conclusion, we summarizeare summarizing attempts made in sensing technonolgy development for on-spot and rapid DFSA drugs detection. To the best of our knowledge,to date no effort has been made in this direction, hence our study may provide detailed insight of forensic science and analytical chemistry. We believe it will motivate the scientific community to make additional effort in this emerging interdisciplinary field for DFSA associated drugs detection.