Pichini S., Altieri I., Pellegrini M., Pacifici R., Zuccaro P., Ottaviano V., Furnari C. ^*

Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry, National Institute of Health, Rome,Italy
^*Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy

Different proposed procedures for the extraction of opiates (heroin, monoacetylmorphine, morphine, codeine) from human hair have been evaluated and compared with the direct aqueous digestion of the hair matrix. In details, 50-100 mg of hair taken from drug addicts were extracted by: 1) acid digestion of the hair matrix followed by liquid-liquid extraction with lipophilic solvents under alkaline conditions; 2) acid digestion of the hair over 24 hours followed by solid-phase extraction with Bond Elut Certify columns; 3) acid digestion of the hair matrix followed by liquid elution from Extrelut columns; 4) aqueous digestion at 56° C over 24 hours.
The analyses of the extracts were performed by both liquid chromatography with U.V. detection and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The extractions procedures were evaluated on the basis of accuracy, reproducibility and chromatographic profile. The latter in order to evaluate the removal of interfering peaks that may lead to an incorrect identification and/or quantitation of the investigated analytes. The results obtained indicate that the direct aqueous extraction provides very clean sample, suitable for gaschromatography/mass spectrometry determinations, while the acid digestion followed by solid-phase extraction gave the best compromise between recovery and chromatographic profile using liquid chromatography.