Papers of the Week

Prompt and personalized perioperative analgesia management relies on sensitive and convenient monitoring of analgesics. We report a strategy for sensitive and reproducible SERS detection of analgesics based on Ag nanocubes, which have abundant intragranular hot spots on sharp corners and interparticle hot spots between gaps. Both theoretical simulations and R6G detection experiments indicated that the enhancement factor of Ag nanocube SERS platform reach to 10 level. Quantitative and reproducible determination capabilities of this platform for six different analgesics with LOD as low as 500 pg mL were verified. Pharmacokinetic experiment of fentanyl in rat serum samples by SERS detection within 4 h presented consistent results with the UHPLC-MS/MS method. Valid examples of SERS detection for single or multiple analgesics in clinical patients’ serums further proved the feasibility of this platform for perioperative analgesic monitoring.