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Sweat testing for heroin and metabolites in a heroin maintenance program

¹ Institut de Médecine Légale, 11 rue Humann, 67000 Strasbourg, France.

² Institute of Pharmacy, Baltzerstr. 5, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
^a Author for correspondence. Fax 33.3.88.24.00.85.

Recent advances in sensitive analytical techniques have enabled the analysis of drugs in unconventional biological materials such as sweat. In a study conducted during a heroin maintenance program, 14 subjects had sweat patches applied, then received intravenously two or three doses of heroin hydrochloride ranging from 80 to 1000 mg/day. The sweat patch was applied 10 min before the first dosage and removed ~24 h later, minutes before the next dosage. Absorbent pads were stored at -20 °C in plastic tubes until analysis. The target drugs were extracted in 5 mL of acetonitrile in the presence of 100 ng each of heroin-d₉, 6-acetylmorphine-d₃, and morphine-d₃. After agitation for 30 min, the acetonitrile solution was divided into two portions: 2 mL for heroin testing and the remainder for testing for the other compounds. After evaporation, the residue of the first portion was reconstituted in 35 µL of acetonitrile; the second was derivatized by silylation with 40 µL of N,O-bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide containing 10 mL/L trimethylchlorosilane. Drugs were analyzed by GC-MS in electron impact mode. Concentrations (nanograms per patch) ranged from 2.1 to 96.3 for heroin, 0 to 24.6 for 6-acetylmorphine, and 0 to 11.2 morphine. Except in one case, heroin was the major drug present in sweat, followed by 6-acetylmorphine and morphine. We observed no correlation between the doses of heroin administered and the concentrations of heroin measured in sweat.

Key Words: indexing terms: gas chromatography–mass spectrometry • drugs of abuse • morphine

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