Hair analysis of selected drug-facilitated sexual assault substances using green supramolecular solvent extraction and LC-MS/MS analysis

Abstract

Drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) investigations require the consumption history of certain drugs by the victim. Hair; as a keratinized biological sample, offers the possibility to perform retrospective quantitative analysis due to its large window of detection in comparison to other biological matrices. Many analytical methods have been reported to determine class-specific DFSA substances. However, generic methods able to determine multiclass DFSA substances and which are also more sustainable remain pending. In this paper, we develop an efficient and eco-friendly generic single-step extraction method, based on the use of a supramolecular solvent (SUPRAS) made up of 1,2-hexanediol, to extract benzodiazepines, z-hypnotic compounds, cocaine and metabolites, amphetamine derivatives and other miscellaneous compounds involved in DFSA from hair. The proposed method offers a high extraction recovery (>86%) and acceptable matrix effects for 91% of the 23 tested substances, which cover a wide polarity range (log P from − 0.3 to 7.0). The estimated method detection and quantification limits were in the ranges 0.1–24.2 pg/mg and 0.4–80 pg/mg, respectively, and were lower than the recommended drug cut-off levels for all the studied substances, except for 11-nor-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid. This fast and environmentally friendly method has been successfully applied to quantify DFSA substances in different hair samples.