Summary:
With the increasing number of abused stimulant and psychedelic drugs, along with so called
„dance drugs“ and „new synthetic drugs“ available on the Czech illegal market, there is a need to
update methods in toxicological laboratories and therefore it is necessary to develop and
optimalize screening and identification procedures for new toxic substances appearing in the
laboratory practice. It is well known that relatively popular commercial screening immunoassays
have some limits: for instance restricted amount of detectable substances, specificity and
sensitivity of detection. Therefore, it is mandatory to combine or complete them with more specific
methods based on a different principle. In this paper we have focused on collecting useful
analytical data to introduce or complete the system of detection and identification of unknown
drugs and their metabolites which can appear in biological samples by using gas chromatographymass
spectrometry (GC-MS) after preparation of relevant acetylated derivatives. The collection of
experimental data involves retention indexes and mass spectra of acetylated phenylalkylamines,
tryptamines and piperazines and some of their metabolites. These data are fundamental for
laboratory diagnostics of drugs of abuse or intoxication and they can be useful for practical
application in a number of toxicological laboratories. The mean limit of detection 0.1 ng analyte
injected to GC-MS is low enough to allow the method to be successfully applied to real toxicological
samples.
Key words:
toxicological analysis, GC-MS, derivatives of amphetamine, phenylalkylamine, tryptamine,
piperazine
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