Ten Years of Fentanyl-like Drugs: a Technical-analytical Review

Abstract

Synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and its analogues, are a new public health warning. Clandestine laboratories produce drug analogues at a faster rate than these compounds can be controlled or scheduled by drug agencies. Detection requires specific testing and clinicians may be confronted with a sequence of severe issues concerning the diagnosis and management of these contemporary opioid overdoses. This paper deals with methods for biological sample treatment, as well as the methodologies of analysis that have been reported, in the last decade, in the field of fentanyl-like compounds. From this analysis, it emerges that the gold standard for the identification and quantification of 4-anilinopiperidines is LC-MS/MS, coupled with liquid-liquid or solid-phase extraction. In the end, the return to the scene of illicit fentanyls can be considered as a critical problem that can be tackled only with a global multidisciplinary approach.

A toxicological exploration of the opioid crisis

“…Table 12 outlines some of the more prolific assays as a starting point for researchers that are looking to adopt a multianalyte assay for their laboratory. For a detailed list, the authors recommend papers by Roda, Faggiani, Bolchi, Pallavicini, and Dei Cas (2019), Marchei et al (2018), and Tabarra et al (2019) as these are recent papers that outline extraction procedures and analytical methods for various matrices seen in forensic laboratories.…”

Development and validation of liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry targeted screening of 16 fentanyl analogs and U‐47700 in hair: Application to 137 authentic samples

“…In this context, more reliable and sensitive methods dedicated to the identification and quantification of NSOs are needed. Recently, liquid or gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) based methods for NSOs screening and quantification have been reviewed extensively 9,10 . Targeted screening techniques are the most used for their high sensitivity and specificity.…”

“…MzCloud®) continuously enriched with the spectra of newly marketed products 16–18 . Unfortunately, this kind of method is still not available in most forensic laboratories 9 …”

Hair testing for 3-fluorofentanyl, furanylfentanyl, methoxyacetylfentanyl, carfentanil, acetylfentanyl and fentanyl by LC–MS/MS after unintentional overdose

“…In the actual context of opioids crisis, more reliable and sensitive methods dedicated to the identification and quantification of NSOs in biological and non-biological matrices are needed. Recently, these analytical methods often based on chromatography (liquid or gas) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) detection were extensively reviewed [7,8]. Even if targeted screening is highly sensitive and specific, they remain limited by the unavailability of reference standards [7,[9][10][11][12].…”

“…Recently, these analytical methods often based on chromatography (liquid or gas) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) detection were extensively reviewed [7,8]. Even if targeted screening is highly sensitive and specific, they remain limited by the unavailability of reference standards [7,[9][10][11][12]. A new approach based on untargeted screening by liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) using a shared MS spectral database and without a need for reference standards has emerged in recent years [13][14][15].…”