Dominion has refined its laboratory testing procedure for the opiate medication fentanyl by lowering the limit of quantification (LOQ) for the primary metabolite, norfentanyl, to 1ng/ml.
This testing procedure is performed by ultra-performance liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS).
The synthetic opiate fentanyl undergoes extensive metabolism, with only 0.4-6.0 per cent eliminated in the urine as unchanged drug and as much as 55 per cent excreted as the primary metabolite, norfentanyl.
Metabolism and excretion studies have also shown that norfentanyl can be detected in the urine of patients approximately three times longer than that of the parent compound.
As a result of the increased availability of norfentanyl in the urine, as well as the expanded window of detection, Dominion has lowered the LOQ of norfentanyl, increasing the overall analytical sensitivity of the testing procedure.
