Monitoring Intravenous Abuse of Methadone or Buprenorphine in Opiate Maintenance Treatment (OMT): A Simple and Fast LC-MS-MS Method for the Detection of Disaccharides in Urine Samples.

The detection of disaccharides in urine is under investigation to act as a marker for intravenous abuse of disaccharide formulations, like liquid methadone with syrup (sucrose), methadone tablets (lactose and sucrose), or buprenorphine tablets (lactose). As the detection time in urine has not yet been investigated and a routine method for detecting disaccharides is still lacking, a study was performed to estimate the window of detection in urine after intravenous consumption of disaccharides. Furthermore, an analytical LC-MSMS method for the quantification of sucrose and lactose in urine was validated. The method was applied to urine samples of intravenous substitute consumers, with urine being sampled before intravenous use of substitutes and approximately 30 minutes later. Twenty users provided information regarding their most recent prior intravenous consumption. Disaccharides were detectable in all 20 urine samples about 30 minutes after consumption. A cut off for both disaccharides of 40mg/L was used. Based on these conditions 81% of the persons who consumed in a time frame of 24 hours ago showed positive results for disaccharides. The study showed that the validated LC-MSMS method with an easy and fast workup is usable for daily routine in the laboratory. It might be helpful for methadone and buprenorphine prescribing physicians to check whether the opiate maintenance treatment patient takes his or her substitution medicines orally as intended, or continues with intravenous misuse by injecting substitution medicines instead of heroin.