Identification and quantification of psychoactive drugs in whole blood using dried blood spot (DBS) by ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

摘要

A procedure based on ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry has been developed for the determination of twenty three psychoactive drugs and metabolites in whole blood using dried blood spot (DBS). Chromatographic separation was achieved at ambient temperature using a reverse-phase column and a linear gradient elution with two solvents: 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile and 5 mM ammonium formate at pH 3. The mass spectrometer was operated in positive ion mode, using multiple reaction monitoring via positive electro-spray ionization. The method was linear from the limit of quantification (5 ng/ml for all the analytes apart from 15 ng/ml for Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and metabolites) to 500 ng/ml, and showed good correlation coefficients (r(2) = 0.990) for all substances. Analytical recovery of analytes under investigation was always higher than 75% and intra-assay and inter-assay precision and accuracy always better than 15%.