SOFT/TIAFT 98 - 6-Acetylcodeine as a Urine Marker to Differentiate...

SOFT - TIAFT 1998

Scientific Session 1

Wednesday October 7, 1998

6-ACETYLCODEINE AS A URINE MARKER TO DIFFERENTIATE THE USE OF STREET HEROIN AND PHARMACEUTICAL HEROIN
	Rudolf Brenneisen, Thomas Lehmann, David Vonlanthen University of Bern, Dep. Clinical Research, Bern, Switzerland.

Pharmaceutically pure diacetylmorphine (heroin) is administered under strictly medicinally-controlled conditions to heavy heroin addicts, participating in the Swiss Heroin Maintenance Program. To check the feasibility of an analytical monitoring of concomitant consumption of street heroin, urines were collected unannounced and on the same day from randomly selected subjects. A previous chemical profiling of 170 street heroin samples has shown that >95% contained 1-5% of 6-acetylcodeine (AC). After solid-phase extraction of 10 ml-urine aliquots, resulting in a recovery of 84-92% AC, GC/MS in the SIM mode was used for quantitation. The identification of AC was based on the target ion m/z 341 and the ion ratios of the other characteristic ions m/z 282 and 229. The ions m/z 341 (AC) and 344 (AC-d₃, internal standard) were evaluated to quantitate AC. The limit of quantitation was 0.22 ng/mL, whereas the intra- and inter-day precision (n = 6, 10 ng/mL level) of the method was 3.2 and 7.4%, respectively. On that particular day 34% of the urine samples (n = 80) were > the cutoff-concentration (0.22 ng/mL), with a content of 0.22 to 247 ng/mL AC. The percentage of positive urines was in correlation with that resulting from the self-declaration of interviewed program participants. Long-term studies including pharmacokinetics are necessary to check the reliability of the AC urine monitoring as a potential tool for following the socio-medical effects of the Heroin Maintenance Program.

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