Rapid drug screening system for death investigation

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26460873
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Legal medicine
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Usui Kiyotaka 東北大学, 医学系研究科, 講師 (80567884)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: Flow injection / QuEChERS extraction / Drug screening / Tandem mass spectrometry

Outline of Final Research Achievements

There is a compelling need for the rapid drug screening in forensic science in Japan. From the start-up of an LC-MS/MS to the reporting of the result, including analysis of the blank sample, a period of more than 2 hours is typical. Additionally, this technique is somewhat difficult for less experienced analysts. Therefore, we addressed these limiting factors by developing a reliable and simple analytical technique using a combination of the QuEChERS method and an FI-MS/MS, which returns results within 10 min. This new method enabled us to complete the entire drug screening process within 10 min. For actual forensic cases, the qualitative results roughly matched (96% concordance rate) with the results obtained with the standard LC-MS/MS technique. Although some drugs present at low concentrations were not detected in the analysis of forensic cases, the QuEChERS-FI-MS/MS method was able to detect a wide-range of drugs in whole blood in a relatively short time.

Free Research Field

法中毒学