Hair analysis interpretation of an unusual case of alleged scopolamine-facilitated sexual assault

Detection of scopolamine in urine and hair in a drug-facilitated sexual assault

The use of the drug scopolamine in drug-facilitated crimes is known. Nevertheless, given the high potency of the drug and its rapid metabolism, analysis in blood and urine may not be sufficient for drug detection in late crime declaration, especially following a single-dose administration in drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) cases. Hair may constitute an essential supplemental matrix extending the drug detection window in such cases. This case report presents quantitative data on scopolamine findings in urine and hair in a DFSA case. A young female had consumed several alcoholic drinks at a party venue when her behaviour became noticeably peculiar. Later, she woke up next to an unknown man and had no recollection of the night's events. Blood and urine samples were collected 18 h after the incident. The initial toxicological target screening using UHPLC-TOF-MS detected scopolamine in the hydrolysed urine sample, and quantification yielded 41 µg/L scopolamine in urine, while blood was negative. Segmental hair analysis using multitarget UHPLC-MS/MS was performed on three washed 2-cm segments of hair collected five weeks after the incident, yielding 0.37 pg/mg scopolamine only in the relevant hair segment. This case report provides novel insight into the concentration in hair following a single exposure of scopolamine and the feasibility of detecting scopolamine in hair by comparison to published toxicological findings.

Determination of 5 synthetic cannabinoids in hair by Segmental analysis using UHPLC-MS/MS and its application to eight polydrug abuse cases

In recent years, an increasing number of new synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) have appeared in the drug trade market. A UPLC-MS/MS method was developed to simultaneously identify five synthetic cannabinoids in 1 cm segment hair samples. The method was fully validated and confirmed to have good selectivity, accuracy, and precision, as well as satisfactory linearity within the calibrated range. The limit of quantification (LOD) was 0.5 pg/mg, and the lower limit of quantitation (LLOQ) was 1 pg/mg, with intraday and interday accuracies (bias) ranging from - 9.6-13.7%. The validated method was successfully used for qualitative and quantitative analysis of five SCs in authentic hair samples of eight SC abusers. SCs were detected in 8 cases at concentrations ranging from 1.5 to 632.9 pg/mg.

Time course of estazolam in single-strand hair based on micro-segmental analysis after controlled oral administration

The mechanism of estazolam incorporation into hair was investigated by studying the time course of estazolam along single-strand hair after two oral administration of estazolam at 28 days interval. Estazolam in single hair segments 0.4 mm in length was verified and quantified by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The distributions of estazolam within a strand of hair (collected at 12 h, 28 days, and 56 days post-administration) were visualized by micro-segmental analysis. The highest estazolam concentration (1.5-9.9 pg/mm) was detected in the hair bulb region (S1), and it then decreased through the hair shaft to the distal end, with a small fluctuation (0.3-3 pg/mm) near the junction of the hair roots and shafts (S4-S7) 12 h after drug intake. These findings suggested that the incorporation of estazolam occurred in two regions, mainly in the hair bulb and to a lesser extent in the upper dermis zone. Models using internal temporal markers (TIMs) and temporal intervals (TIs) were constructed to estimate the day of estazolam ingestion. The estimation accuracy was within an average error of 1.7 mm and 3.0 mm between the calculated and actual positions, based on the TIMs and TIs 56 days after estazolam intake. These findings can help in further elucidation of the drug incorporation mechanism, which is crucial for interpreting hair analysis results used to reveal individual drug-use history.

Two DFSA cases involving midazolam clarified by the micro-segmental hair analyses

PURPOSE

In this study, an analytical procedure to identify trace amounts of drug in hair based on micro-segmental hair analysis was presented. The method also can be used to estimate the time of drug ingestion at daily precision by cutting a single hair into sub-millimeter segments which correspond to daily hair growth.

METHODS

A method was established for efficient extraction of midazolam, one of the most frequently detected compound in drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) cases, from each 0.4-mm hair segment and validated by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). Moreover, two DFSA cases were used to compare the micro-segmental hair analysis with the 1- cm segmental analysis method.

RESULTS

The validation showed a lower limit of quantification of 0.5 pg/mm for midazolam, with intraday and interday accuracies (bias) from  - 5.2 to 0.9%. The micro-segmental hair analysis method was applied to proximal 1-cm hair segment including hair bulbs in two DFSA cases. The micro-segmental hair analysis results in case 1 showed midazolam in the S15-S17 (5.6-6.8 mm from hair bulb) in a concentration range from 0.5 to 0.9 pg/mm, and the concentrations of midazolam in all hair micro-segments (0-1 cm from the scalp) in case 2 were from 0.5 to 2.0 pg/mm.

CONCLUSIONS

Comparison with the conventional method revealed that micro-segmental hair analysis may enhance the utility of hair drug testing and strengthen probative force in DFSA cases.

Diminished Consciousness in a Woman Following an Unsuspected Scopolamine Overdose

Scopolamine is used clinically, but it is also used as a recreational drug and as an incapacitating drug, in sexual crimes and robberies. In this paper, the authors report the case of a woman with a diminished consciousness following an unsuspected overdose with scopolamine and review published articles on scopolamine poisoning that included concentrations in biological samples. Scopolamine was identified in the patient's serum and urine samples collected 1 h post-admission to intensive care unit at concentrations of 8.4 ng/mL and 62,560 ng/mL (169,539 ng/mg creatinine), respectively. In non-fatal cases, the median [interquartile range] of serum scopolamine levels was 1.9 [2.1] ng/mL. The serum concentration found in our case would explain the abrupt clinical presentation suffered by the patient. Scopolamine in urine could be detected up to 48 h after admission. This report illustrates that broad toxicology screening, including scopolamine, should be considered when patients with diminished consciousness are attended after ruling out infection or cerebrovascular disease. This can play an important role in identifying this potentially life-threatening etiology.

Increasing awareness of the severity of female victimization by opportunistic drug-facilitated sexual assault: A new viewpoint

The victimization of women by opportunistic drug-facilitated sexual assault in leisure contexts was studied in this work by applying a novel approximation. A multifocal analytical strategy based on an intersectional gender-sensitive approach was used to analyse the evidence coming from both forensic case studies and contextual studies about sexual interrelation and drug use. The process of victimization comprises social changes affecting consumption patterns and sexual interaction, intersecting in the hegemonic recreational nightlife model. However, victims experience a range of situations that make it difficult for them to self-acknowledge themselves as such. Widespread myths about the victimization process add to the social questioning faced by victims, stemming from gender-based double standards which condition the expected female behaviors regarding the use of drugs and sexual interaction. The victims usually experience amnesia, lack of injuries and emotional harm, which make difficult the self-acknowledgement as a victim of sexual assault and the reporting of the episode suffered. Consequently, it is an urgent public health need to implement a new viewpoint about the victimization of women by opportunistic drug-facilitated sexual assault in leisure contexts, able to increase awareness of the severity of this form of sexual violence. Society must recognize the existence of this problem within itself to help victims to acknowledge themselves as such, lodge a complaint and seek adequate help. The lack of this social support feeds the perpetuation of the victimization process, which exacerbates the risk of locking victims into spirals of cyclical re-victimization and favors both the underreporting as well as inadequate coping strategies. In addition to focusing on the need to increase awareness of the severity of female victimization by opportunistic drug-facilitated sexual assault in leisure contexts, other recommendations include the use of the term "take advantage", the development of specific criminal approaches, and the in-depth knowledge of the phenomenon via victimization surveys. These steps are necessary for developing well-targeted and evidence-based preventive measures consistent-with-reality.

Cloud point extraction coupled with back extraction: a green methodology in analytical chemistry

Recently, cloud point extraction (CPE) coupled with back extraction (BE) has been suggested as a promising alternative to liquid-liquid extraction. In CPE, non-ionic surfactants in aqueous solutions form micelles and the solution becomes turbid when heated to the cloud point temperature. Microwave- or ultrasonic-assisted BE can be performed after CPE and before injection of the sample for instrumental analysis by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. This article reviews selected published scientific research on the application of CPE-BE to the determination of alkaloids, drugs and organophosphorus compounds from several complex matrices. This method could be scaled-up for use in forensic science.

Recent trends in analytical methods and separation techniques for drugs of abuse in hair

Hair analysis of drugs of abuse has been a subject of growing interest from a clinical, social and forensic perspective for years because of the broad time detection window after intake in comparison to urine and blood analysis. Over the last few years, hair analysis has gained increasing attention and recognition for the retrospective investigation of drug abuse in a wide variety of contexts, shown by the large number of applications developed. This review aims to provide an overview of the state of the art and the latest trends used in the literature from 2005 to the present in the analysis of drugs of abuse in hair, with a special focus on separation analytical techniques and their hyphenation with mass spectrometry detection. The most recently introduced sample preparation techniques are also addressed in this paper. The main strengths and weaknesses of all of these approaches are critically discussed by means of relevant applications.

Measurement of atropine and scopolamine in hair by LC-MS/MS after Datura stramonium chronic exposure

BACKGROUND

Datura stramonium is an herbaceous annual plant. All parts of the plant contain tropane alkaloids such as atropine and scopolamine. We report the case of a 22-year-old man admitted to a general hospital for visual and aural hallucinations. One week after his admission, as the hallucinations remained, the patient was transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Neither blood nor urine was conserved during his hospitalization, so a hair analysis was requested in order to identify a possible consumption of a Datura seed infusion.

METHODS

After decontamination and washing, hair strands were segmented into four pieces and grinded into a fine and homogeneous powder. We then incubated 20 mg for 10 min in 1 mL of phosphate buffer at pH 5.0 in the presence of 100 ng of ketamine-d4, used as internal standard (IS). Liquid-liquid extraction was performed with 4 mL of a mixture of hexane/ethyl acetate (1/1, v/v). The residue was reconstituted in 80 μL of mobile phase. A further 10 μL were injected into an 1.9 μm Hypersil GOLD PFP column (100 mm×2.1 mm) eluted with a gradient of acetonitrile and 2 mmol/L 0.1% formate buffer at a flow rate of 300 μL/min. Compounds were detected by a LCQ TSQ Vantage XP triple-quadripole mass spectrometer equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source set in positive mode. SRM transitions m/z 290.2→124.1, m/z 304.2→138.1, and m/z 242.1→129.1 were optimized for atropine, scopolamine and IS, respectively.

RESULTS

The assay was accurate and precise over the range of 1.0 (lower limit of quantification) to 1000.0 pg/mg (upper limit of quantification) in hair. Both atropine (from 8.4 to 15.0 pg/mg) and scopolamine (1.0-1.3 pg/mg) were identified in the four segment of the hair showing a regular consumption of Datura admitted by the patient himself.

CONCLUSION

We report here the first description of atropine with scopolamine in a Caucasian dark man's hair after D. stramonium chronic exposure, using a validated LC-MS/MS method.