Analysis of Ketamine and Xylazine in Rat Tissues

In Veterinary medicine, xylazine is an FDA approved tranquilizer often used in combination with ketamine. The recreational use of both drugs is on the rise in a number of countries. Recently, the cocktail has been reported as a date rape drug resulting in ketamine being re-classified as a Schedule III drug in the US. the analysis of xylazine and ketamine in biological samples presents a number of challenges to analysts. Hyphenated chromatography platforms have enabled the sensitivity and efficiency to detect trace levels of analytes previously unachievable by traditional means. The only bottleneck now is the lengthy sample preparation time required, which will inevitably delay forensic investigations.