Quantification of MDMB-4en-PINACA and ADB-BUTINACA in human hair by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Abstract

To test synthetic cannabinoid (SCs) in parent forms from living human, the hairs seems to be one of the best samples, because of the non-invasiveness upon their collection. The purpose of this study is to establish a method for quantification of MDMB-4en-PINACA and ADB-BUTINACA, the most recently abused SCs in hair samples, using gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS). The collected hair samples were washed with a detergent solution, following by water and acetone. After drying cutting them into about 2mm sections, they were ground by a cryogenic grinder into powder. The 50-mg powder with internal standard(s) plus 1mL methanol were vortexed, and centrifuged to obtain the supernatant layer. After its evaporation and reconstitution with 50 µL methanol, 1-µL aliquot of it was subjected to analysis. The standard calibration curves were created for both MDMB-4en-PINACA and ADB-BUTINACAin blank hair samples; good linear curves were obtained in the range of 20-20,000pg/mg with correlation coefficients greater than 0.99. The limits of detection and limits of quantification were 10 and 20pg/mg, respectively. Other validation parameters were all satisfactory. The concentrations of MDMB-4en-PINACA obtained from 3 authentic subjects and ADB-BUTINACA obtained from 3 authentic subjects were 26.2-806pg/mg and 63.1-430pg/mg, respectively. In the present article, the details of simple and rapid quantification of MDMB-4en-PINACA and ADB-BUTINACA in human scalp hair have been established. To our knowledge, this is the first report for quantification of SCs in hair samples by GC-MS/MS.