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Determination of Cocaine Usage in Pregnant Women by a Urinary EMIT Drug Screen and GC-MS Analyses
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Determination of Cocaine Usage in Pregnant Women by a Urinary EMIT Drug Screen and GC-MS Analyses

G. John DiGregorio, Andrew P. Ferko, Edward J. Barbieri, Eileen K. Ruch, Harbhajan Chawla, Denis Keohane, Rachel Rosenstock and Allyson Aldano
Journal of analytical toxicology, v 18(5), pp 247-250
Sep 1994
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jat/18.5.247
PMID: 7990440
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel

Abstract

In mothers who had no prenatal care and in their newborns, the presence of cocaine and benzoylecgonine (BE) was determined in urine, hair, and meconium. Samples of urine and hair were obtained from pregnant women who entered the hospital for delivery. Cocaine usage was assessed by a urinary enzyme-multiplied immunoassay technique (EMIT) and by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). GC-MS was used to detect the presence of cocaine and BE in maternal urine and hair and in meconium and hair obtained from their newborns. In this study of 40 women, the EMIT assay for urinary BE identified 17 (42.5%) of the women as having used cocaine. Of these 17 women, all of their newborns were exposed to cocaine during gestation, based on the analysis of neonatal hair and meconium for cocaine or BE. From lhe maternal samples that were assayed for cocaine and BE by GC-MS, it appears that hair analysis identified the most cocaine users (70%) of the 40 women who participated in the study. When GC-MS was used to analyze the various samples from mothers and their newborns, 80% of the neonates showed exposure to cocaine. This study shows that women with no prenatal care who have a positive urinary drug screen by EMIT for BE have exposed their newborns to cocaine. The data from pregnant women with a negative drug screen for BE show that 52.2% of their newborns had prior fetal exposure to cocaine.

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18 citations in Web of Science
19 citations in Scopus

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Web of Science research areas
Chemistry, Analytical
Toxicology
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