A Greener Route to Anti-Doping Analysis

Bar adsorptive microextraction provides lower-solvent confirmation of cocaine and three metabolites in urine using GC-MS

To validate a bar adsorptive microextraction (BAµE) workflow for the qualitative confirmation of cocaine and its metabolites in human urine.

Sample Preparation: BAµE uses a small coated bar to selectively retain target analytes from urine samples, optimizing extraction conditions and reducing solvent use.
Method Validation: Validation was conducted against World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) criteria, ensuring no false positives or negatives.
Comparison with Existing Methods: The BAµE workflow was compared with traditional solid-phase extraction/GC-MS methods, demonstrating improved selectivity and sensitivity.

The BAµE method met WADA identification limits, including 1.0 ng/mL for cocaine.
No false positives were found in blank urine samples, and no false negatives in spiked samples.
Final extracts remained stable for up to 144 hours.

The extraction step takes two hours, making it less suitable for high-throughput screening.
The method is currently validated only for cocaine and its metabolites.