LAUSR

PurposeIn this work, a new approach for synthetic cathinone identification in seized products, consisting of a rapid pseudo-target screening using liquid chromatography coupled to low-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), is proposed based on typical common product ions and neutral losses observed for this drug class.MethodsThe term “pseudo-target” screening indicates that although a pre-defined target compound list is not used, the search is limited to synthetic cathinones with expected common moieties. A total of 22 neutral losses and 36 common product ions were monitored and used for cathinone identification.ResultsIn order to test the approach, 14 blind samples were analyzed and the results compared with high-resolution mass spectrometry data. From the data obtained, the different moieties of the cathinones (and therefore their structures) could be derived, allowing their tentative identification.ConclusionsThis methodology will be useful for the first and rapid synthetic cathinone detection in laboratories that have low-resolution MS/MS instrumentation.