A postmortem case report involving fentanyl, desalkylgidazepam, and bromazolam.

The emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS) and the number of new chemically diverse substances in the global illicit drug market have significantly increased over the last few years. Designer benzodiazepines are some of the most misused NPS worldwide, contributing to both nonfatal and fatal drug overdose cases. The use of desalkylgidazepam and bromazolam has recently emerged, and their prevalence has been internationally reported.

A quantitative LC-MS/MS analysis of Xylazine, p-Fluorofentanyl, Fentanyl and Fentanyl-Related compounds in postmortem blood.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a method to quantitate the veterinary sedative xylazine as well as 4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (4-ANPP), acetyl fentanyl, fentanyl, norfentanyl, and p-fluorofentanyl in blood utilizing liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. This method also qualitatively monitors for the presence of o-fluorofentanyl and m-fluorofentanyl isomers. UCT Clean Screen® DAU extraction columns were utilized to isolate the analytes in postmortem blood samples.

Illicitly Manufactured Fentanyl-Involved Overdose Deaths with Detected Xylazine - United States, January 2019-June 2022.

In 2022, provisional data indicated that more than two thirds (68%) of the reported 107,081 drug overdose deaths in the United States involved synthetic opioids other than methadone, principally illicitly manufactured fentanyls (IMFs) (1). Xylazine, a nonopioid sedative not approved for human use and with no known antidote, has been increasingly detected in IMF products in the U.S.