Development of a novel enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry method for the differentiation of dextro- and levo-methorphan and their O-demethylated metabolites in human blood and its application to post-mortem samples

Recently we proposed an isocratic enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the separation and quantitative determination of dextro-(DXM) and levomethorphan (LVM) and their pharmacologically relevant metabolites, dextrorphan and levorphanol, respectively, in human blood samples. This method was based on the polysaccharide-based chiral column Lux AMP, a specialty column characterized with high stability in mobile phases of pH 11.0 and above. The use of a single source column is a limitation for any analytical method. Therefore, the major goal of the present study was to develop an enantioselective method for the differentiation of dextro-and levo-methorphan, as well as their metabolites dextrorphan and levorphanol, using Lux Cellulose-3 as alternative chiral column with methanol containing 0.1 % diethylamine mobile phase. A newly developed method uses a chiral selector part of HPLC columns available from multiple manufacturers and a fairly common mobile phase. The method was validated and applied to post-mortem blood samples. Out of 50 analyzed new samples, dextromethorphan (DXM) was detected in 17 samples. Of these 17 cases DXM was accompanied with LVM in 7 samples. The proposed analytical method is relatively simple, accurate and fast and can be adopted for routine use in forensic and clinical toxicology laboratories.