Forensic Science International
Volume 153, Issue 1 , Pages 59-65 , 4 October 2005

Assessment of exposure to opiates and cocaine during pregnancy in a Mediterranean city: Preliminary results of the “Meconium Project”

  • Simona Pichini

      Affiliations

    • Drug Research and Evaluation Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
  • ,
  • Carme Puig

      Affiliations

    • Paediatric Service, Unitat de Recerca Infància i Entorn (URIE), Hospital del Mar, Paseo Marítimo 25-29, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
    • Departament de Pediatria, Ginecologia i Obstetricia, i Medicina Preventiva, Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona, Spain
  • ,
  • Piergiorgio Zuccaro

      Affiliations

    • Drug Research and Evaluation Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
  • ,
  • Emilia Marchei

      Affiliations

    • Drug Research and Evaluation Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
  • ,
  • Manuela Pellegrini

      Affiliations

    • Drug Research and Evaluation Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
  • ,
  • Janeth Murillo

      Affiliations

    • Paediatric Service, Unitat de Recerca Infància i Entorn (URIE), Hospital del Mar, Paseo Marítimo 25-29, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
    • Departament de Pediatria, Ginecologia i Obstetricia, i Medicina Preventiva, Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona, Spain
  • ,
  • Oriol Vall

      Affiliations

    • Paediatric Service, Unitat de Recerca Infància i Entorn (URIE), Hospital del Mar, Paseo Marítimo 25-29, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
    • Departament de Pediatria, Ginecologia i Obstetricia, i Medicina Preventiva, Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona, Spain
  • ,
  • Roberta Pacifici

      Affiliations

    • Drug Research and Evaluation Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
  • ,
  • Óscar García-Algar

      Affiliations

    • Paediatric Service, Unitat de Recerca Infància i Entorn (URIE), Hospital del Mar, Paseo Marítimo 25-29, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
    • Departament de Pediatria, Ginecologia i Obstetricia, i Medicina Preventiva, Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona, Spain
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Tel.: +34 93 2483551; fax: +34 93 2483254.

References 

  1. Koren G, Chan D, Klein J, Karaskov T. Estimation of fetal exposure to drugs of abuse, environmental tobacco smoke, and ethanol. Ther. Drug Monit. 2002;24:23–25
  2. Moriya F, Chan K, Noguchi TT, Wu PYK. Testing for drugs of abuse in meconium of newborn infants. J. Anal. Toxicol. 1994;18:41–45
  3. Huestis MA, Choo RE. Drug abuse's smallest victims: in utero drug exposure. Forensic Sci. Int. 2002;128:28–30
  4. Ostrea EM, Parks P, Brady M. Rapid isolation and detection of drugs in meconium of infants of drug-dependent mothers. Clin. Chem. 1988;34:2372–2373
  5. Lewis D, Moore C, Leikin JB, Kechavarz L. Multiple birth concordance of street drug assays of meconium analysis. Vet. Hum. Toxicol. 1995;37:318–319
  6. Pichini S, Altieri I, Zuccaro P, Pacifici R. Meconium as a matrix. Clin. Pharmacokinet. 1996;31:81
  7. Bar-Oz B, Klein J, Karaskov T, Koren G. Comparison of meconium and neonatal hair analysis for detection of gestational exposure to drugs of abuse. Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2003;88:F98–F100
  8. http://www.mir.es/pnd/publica/pdf/oed-6.pdf (accessed August 2004).
  9. http://www.annualreport.emcdda.eu.int (accessed August 2004).
  10. Farkas AG, Colbert DL, Erskine KJ. Anonymous testing for drug abuse in an antenatal population. Br. J. Obstet. Gynaecol. 1995;102:563–565
  11. Sherwood RA, Keating J, Kavvadia V, Greenough A, Peters TJ. Substance misuse in early pregnancy and relationship to fetal outcome. Eur. J. Pediatr. 1999;158:488–492
  12. Gupta PC, Warnakulasuriya S. Global epidemiology of areca nut usage. Addict. Biol. 2002;7:77–83
  13. Yang MJ, Chung TC, Yang MJ, Hsu TY, Ko YC. Betel quid chewing and risk of adverse birth outcomes among aborigines in eastern Taiwan. J. Toxicol. Environ. Health A. 2001;64:465–472
  14. Pichini S, Pacifici R, Pellegrini M, Marchei E, Pérez E, Puig C, et al. Development and validation of a liquid chromatography–mass sprectometry assay for the determination of opiates and cocaine in meconium. J. Chromatogr. B. 2003;794:281–292
  15. Pichini S, Pacifici R, Pellegrini M, Marchei E, Lozano J, Murillo J, et al. Development and validation of a high performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry assay for determination of Amphetamine, methamphetamine and methylenedioxyderivatives in meconium. Anal. Chem. 2004;76:2124–2132
  16. Pichini S, Pellegrini M, Pacifici R, Marchei E, Murillo J, Puig C, et al. Quantification of arecoline (areca nut alcaloid) in neonatal biological matrices by high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray quadrupole mass spectrometry. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 2003;17:1958–1964
  17. Salem MY, Ross SA, Murphy TP, ElSohly MA. GC–MS determination of heroin metabolites in meconium: evaluation of four solid-phase extraction cartridges. J. Anal. Toxicol. 2001;25:93–98
  18. ElSohly MA, Stanford DF, Murphy TP, Lester BM, Wright LL, Smeriglio VL, et al. Immunoassay and GC–MS procedures for the analysis of drugs of abuse in meconium. J. Anal. Toxicol. 1999;23:436–445
  19. Norton SA. Betel: consumption and consequences. J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. 1998;38:81–88
  20. O. García-Algar, O. Vall, F. Alameda, C. Puig, M. Pellegrini, R. Pacifici, S. Pichini, Prenatal exposure to arecoline (Areca Nut alkaloid) and birth outcomes. Arch. Dis. Child. (2005).
  21. Pichini S, Basagaña X, Pacifici R, Garcia O, Puig C, Vall O, et al. Cord serum cotinine as a biomarker of foetal exposure to cigarette smoke at the end of pregnancy. Environ. Health Perspect. 2000;108:1079–1083
  22. Ostrea EM, Brady M, Gause S, Raymundo AL, Stevens M. Drug screening of newborns by meconium analysis: a large-scale, prospective, epidemiologic study. Pediatrics. 1992;89:107–113
  23. Silvestre MA, Lucena JE, Roxas R, Evangelista ES, Ostrea EM. Effects of timing, dosage, and duration of morphine intake during pregnancy on the amount of morphine in meconium in a rat model. Biol. Neonate. 1997;72:112–117
  24. Rurak DW, Wright MR, Axelson JE. Drug disposition and effects in the fetus. J. Dev. Physiol. 1991;15:33–44
  25. Lester BM, ElSohly M, Wright LL, Smeriglio VL, Verter J, Bauer CR, et al. The maternal lifestyle study: drug use by meconium toxicology and maternal self-report. Pediatrics. 2001;107:309–317
  26. Corley RA, Mast TJ, Carney EW, Rogers JM, Daston GP. Evaluation of physiologically based models of pregnancy and lactation for their application in children's health risk assessments. Crit. Rev. Toxicol. 2003;33:137–211
  27. ElSohly MA, Kopycki W, Feng S, Murphy TP. Identification and analysis of the major metabolites of cocaine in meconium. J. Anal. Toxicol. 1999;23:446–451
  28. Oyler J, Darwin WD, Preston KL, Suess P, Cone EJ. Cocaine disposition in meconium from newborns of cocaine-abusing mothers and urine of adult drug users. J. Anal. Toxicol. 1996;20:453–462
  29. Xia Y, Wang P, Bartlett MG, Solomon HM, Busch KL. An LC–MS–MS method for the comprehensive analysis of cocaine and cocaine metabolites in meconium. Anal. Chem. 2000;72:764–771
  30. Global Illicit Drug Trends 2000 . United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. New York: United Nation Publication; 2000;pp. 10–16
  31. Ho E, Karimi-Tabesh L, Koren G. Characteristics of pregnant women who use ecstasy (3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine). Neurotoxicol. Teratol. 2001;23:561–567
  32. Brugal MT, Domingo-Salvany A, Diaz De Quijano E, Torralba L. Prevalence of problematic cocaine consumption in a city of southern Europe, using capture–recapture with a single list. J. Urban Health. 2004;81:416–427
  33. Forman R, Klein J, Meta D, Barks J, Greenwald M, Koren G. Maternal and neonatal characteristics following exposure to cocaine in Toronto. Reprod. Toxicol. 1993;7:619–622
  34. Chan D, Caprara D, Blanchette P, Klein J, Koren G. Recent developments in meconium and hair testing methods for the confirmation of gestational exposures to alcohol and tobacco smoke. Clin. Biochem. 2004;37:429–438

PII: S0379-0738(05)00200-8

doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2005.04.013

Forensic Science International
Volume 153, Issue 1 , Pages 59-65 , 4 October 2005