Detection and confirmation of cocaine and cocaethylene in serum emergency toxicology specimens

We report the performance of a liquid chromatography (LC) assay for detection and confirmation of cocaine and cocaethylene in serum. A photodiode array (PDA) detector monitors the cyano column effluent at 230 nm for analyte detection. Confirmation of a peak's identity is performed by use of only the 226-254-nm segment of the spectra rather than a broader range such as 210-340 nm. Use of the narrower range improves the assay's sensitivity by almost 10-fold. Analyte values of 10 micrograms/L are confirmed routinely. Intra-assay imprecision at 100, 20, and 10 micrograms/L for cocaine is 5.1%, 5.7%, and 6.6% (CV), respectively. Absolute recovery of the analytes exceeds 80%. In a split-sample study (33 positives and 74 negatives), each of this method's cocaine findings were confirmed. Cocaethylene was found in 15 of these samples. A complete chromatogram can be available 15 min after the start of the procedure. The method's focus on the active drug (rather than urinary metabolites) and its ability to detect and confirm many other drugs make it well suited for emergency toxicology testing.