Context
Fentanyl, a member of the opioid family, is a drug that is usually prescribed for pain management. It is also used as an addictive recreational drug, and its black-market traffic increased drastically in the 2010s, particularly in the United States. In this same country, in 2021, 1 person every 7 minutes died from an overdose of fentanyl and its analogues, denouncing a real health crisis.
Due to his high affinity with opioid receptors (50 times more than morphine and up to 10,000 times more for some analogues), less than 2mg of this molecule is enough to lead to an overdose. Moreover, it is often used in conjunction with several other psychoactive drugs. Thus, a reliable detection and analysis method for polydrug users is essential in toxicological laboratories.
Thanks to the Precellys 24* homogenizer combined with Bertin’s lysing kit, a UPLC-MS/MS analysis and quantitative method has been developed to detect synthetic opioids (including fentanyl) in hair samples, allowing to determine polydrug history. Bertin’s homogenization solution made possible the critical grinding step, contributing to the success of this complex workflow.
