Development of a sensitive and reliable method for the measurement of drugs of abuse; comparing GC-TOF/MS with GC-quadrupole/MS

摘要

One of the key issues in the development of a fast and reliable method for analysing 'drugs of abuse' (DOA) by GC/MS is spectral skew when using quadrupole instruments. Co-elution & sensitivity also cause problems if matrix components are not effectively removed, this will lead to reduced analytical sensitivity and decreased method ruggedness. In this study, different DOAs were extracted from urine using solid phase extraction (SPE), and detection by TOF MS and a single quadrupole MS. A new deconvolution software (TargetView~(TM)) was used with the TOF MS to allow accurate determination of trace levels of drugs coeluting with matrix compounds. One of the key benefits using TargetView is the automated identification of target compounds, with high match coefficients for commercial library spectra.