Porous silicon mass spectrometry as an alternative confirmatory assay for compliance testing of methadone

Porous silicon based surface-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (pSi SALDI-MS) is an analytical technique well suited for high throughput analysis of low molecular weight compounds from biological samples. A potential application of this technology is the compliance monitoring of opioid addiction programmes, where methadone is used as a pharmacological treatment for drugs such as heroin. Here, we present the detection and quantification of methadone and 2-ethylidene-1,5-dimethyl-3,3-diphenylpyrrolidine (EDDP) from water and clinical samples (saliva, urine, and plasma) from opioid dependent participants using pSi SALDI-MS. A one-step solvent phase extraction using chloroform was developed for the detection of methadone from clinical samples for analysis by pSi SALDI-MS. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used as a comparative technique for the quantification of methadone from clinical saliva and plasma samples. In all cases, we obtained a good correlation of pSi SALDI-MS and LC-MS results, suggesting that pSi SALDI-MS may be an alternative procedure for high-throughput screening and quantification for application in opioid compliance testing.