The Thermo Scientific™ Vanquish™ Horizon UHPLC coupled with the Thermo Scientific™ Stellar™ mass spectrometer is used for the separation and detection of drugs of abuse in oral fluid matrix. The SPE extraction uses XTR tips with mixed mode SCX/WAX chemistry. Using a Thermo Scientific™ Accucore™ Biphenyl column with a total run time of 4.5 minutes, all isomers were separated, including methamphetamine / phentermine and hydromorphone / morphine. The method includes both CID (resonance-type, unique to ion traps) and HCD (beam-type) activations for more optimized fragmentation.
The Thermo Scientific™ Vanquish™ Flex UHPLC coupled with the Thermo Scientific™ TSQ Certis™ mass spectrometer is used for the separation and detection of drugs of abuse in whole blood. The method features protein precipitation and filtration extraction protocol using ToT technology. Using a Thermo Scientific™ Accucore™ Biphenyl column with a total run time of 4.5 minutes, all isomers were separated, including methamphetamine / phentermine and hydromorphone / morphine / norcodeine. With >900 SRMs per second and sub 5 ms polarity switching, this method offers the speed and sensitivity required.
Forensic toxicologists face an ever-expanding list of compounds for analysis. This note presents work done using a next-generation triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with fast SRM acquisition speed for quantitation of 122 analytes in a single chromatographic run, where scan speed does not impact sensitivity or quantitative performance. Compounds analyzed include opiates, opioids, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, amphetamines, tricyclic antidepressants, illicit compounds, and more. For forensic use only.
Marijuana is the most common illegal drug in the United States. Presumptive positive results are confirmed by using GC/MS to positively identify cannabinoids. While this traditional approach works fairly well for leaf marijuana, hashish, hash oil and residue collected from smoking paraphernalia, GC/MS is less useful for confirming the presence of marijuana in complex food matrices such as baked goods. We describe a method to positively identify trace amounts of cannabinoids in a complex food matrix quickly, with minimal sample preparation and no chemical derivatization.
