Breast feeding is beneficial in meeting the nutritional and immunological needs of infants. Using illegal drugs while breast feeding can have severe consequences for both infant and mother. At Biotage, we developed a new extraction protocol for 12 common drugs of abuse (DOA) to be detected in breast milk using mixed-mode polymeric cation exchange solid phase extraction (SPE). The EVOLUTE® EXPRESS CX (Figure 3) extraction allowed for highly-sensitive detection of analytes including Benzoylecgonine, (-)-Cotinine, Caffeine, d-Amphetamine, d-Methamphetamine, Methadone, Morphine, Oxazepam, Oxycodone, Phencyclidine (PCP), Secobarbital, and (l)-9-Carboxy-11-nor-Delta-9-THC (THC-COOH). Extrahera (Figure 2), a bench top automated extraction system, provided minimal sample intervention and high throughput for the analysis of these DOA. Using the combination of reliable automation and SPE sample preparation techniques, a method was developed demonstrating the precision, accuracy, linearity, and sensitivity necessary for a robust quantitative workflow.
Literature Number: P195