Simultaneous and Sensitive Determination of Amphetamine, Codeine and Morphine in Exhaled Breath Condensate, Using Capillary Electrophoresis Coupled with On-line and Off-line Enhancing Methods

Abstract

Background: Abuse of drugs is associated with several medical, forensic, toxicology and social challenges. “Drugs of abuse” testing is therefore an important issue. Objective: We propose a simple CE-based method for the quantification of amphetamine, codeine and morphine after direct injection of Exhaled Breath Condensate (EBC) by the aid of simple stacking mode and an off-line pre-concentration method. Methods: Using graphene oxide adsorbents, amphetamine, codeine and morphine were extracted from EBC in order to eliminate the proteins and other interferences. In addition to off-line method, an online stacking mode was applied to improve the analytical signal obtained from the instrument. Results: The validation parameters were experimented on the developed method based on the FDA guideline over concentration ranges of 12.5-100, 30-500 and 10-1250 ng/mL associated with amphetamine, codeine and morphine, respectively. Small volumes (around 100 μL) of EBC were collected using a lab-made setup and successfully analyzed using the proposed method where precisions and accuracies (within day and between days) were in accordance with the guideline (recommended less than 15 % for biological samples). The recovery tests were used to evaluate the matrix effect and data (94 to 105 %) showed that the proposed method can be applied in different EBC matrix samplings of subjects. Conclusion: The proposed method is superior for simultaneous determination of amphetamine, codeine and morphine over chromatographic analyses because it is fast and consumes fewer chemicals, with no derivatization step.