An overview of sample preparation in forensic toxicology
Sabra Jones, Courtney K. McGowan, Sarah Boyle, Yiling Ke, Chi Hin Marco Chan, Ha-Jin Hwang
Abstract
Abstract Sample preparation is an important step in forensic toxicological analysis. With the technological advancements and the availability of mass spectrometers with increasing sensitivities, the need to remove potential interferences, such as matrix components or non‐relevant analytes to the analysis, is essential to optimizing an analytical method. Forensic toxicological analysis involves diverse analytes with a variety of chemical properties that need to be considered when selecting an appropriate sample preparation technique. The push for broad standards and best practice documents for forensic toxicology demonstrates the need for laboratories to ensure they meet the required capabilities to not only detect specific classes of drugs commonly encountered in forensic case work, but also ensure method validity. The objective of this article is to provide the forensic toxicology community a high‐level overview of biological matrices and their relevant components that should be considered during sample pre‐treatment as well as traditional and non‐traditional sample preparation techniques and present general applications. This article is categorized under: Toxicology > Drug Analysis