Liquid-liquid extraction coupled with LC-MS/MS for multi-residue screening of 223 drugs of abuse in high-sugar confectionery products

초록

The increasing appearance of drug-adulterated edible products has created new analytical demands for forensic and regulatory laboratories, particularly in high-sugar confectionery matrices where matrix effects can compromise multi-residue detection. Here, we report an optimized liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) coupled with LC-MS/MS enabling the simultaneous screening and quantification of 223 drugs of abuse in candy and jelly products. During method optimization, LLE was directly compared with dispersive solid-phase extraction (d-SPE). Despite the common assumption that additional cleanup improves performance, LLE provided more consistent recovery and precision across chemically diverse analytes without loss of sensitivity. The method was validated using matrix-matched calibration and evaluated for specificity, matrix effects, limits of quantification (LOQs), linearity, accuracy, and precision. Most analytes achieved R2 >= 0.98, accuracies within 70-120%, and precision <= 30%, with LOQs generally in the low ng/g range. Under inter-day conditions, a substantial proportion of analytes were quantitatively validated, while additional compounds remained suitable for qualitative confirmation, resulting in broad analytical coverage across both candy and jelly matrices. These findings demonstrate that a simplified LLE-based approach can provide a robust and high-throughput platform for multi-class drug screening in high-sugar confectionery products, supporting practical implementation in forensic and regulatory surveillance.

키워드