Abstract
Triage® DOA is widely used for the on-site screening of drugs of abuse. However, it often provides false positive results for amphetamine due to interference by putrefactive amines, such as 2-phenethylamine, produced by saprogenic bacteria in moderately-to-heavily decomposed bodies. In the present study, we evaluated the performance of five drug screening devices: Triage® TOX Drug Screen, SIGNIFYTM ER, IVeX-screen M-1, Status DS10 and DRIVEN-FLOW M8-Z. A total of 19 forensic autopsy urine samples, which were positive for amphetamines by Triage® DOA, were analyzed with the five drug screening devices and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Only DRIVEN-FLOW M8-Z had no false positive or false negative results for methamphetamines. Triage® TOX Drug Screen and IVeX-screen M-1 each had one false positive result for methamphetamines. Other devices, including Triage® TOX Drug Screen, had multiple false positive and false negative results for amphetamines and methamphetamines. These results suggest that DRIVEN-FLOW M8-Z is more useful than other screening devices for screening of methamphetamines in the presence or absence of 2-phenethylamine, while none of the tested devices detected amphetamines precisely. It is necessary to develop platforms that can precisely detect both amphetamines and methamphetamines.
