en
Scientific article
English

Fast gas chromatography and negative-ion chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry for forensic analysis of cannabinoids in whole blood

Published inJournal of pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis, vol. 45, no. 3, p. 495-503
Publication date2007
Abstract

The present work describes a fast gas chromatography/negative-ion chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometric assay (Fast GC/NICI-MS/MS) for analysis of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), 11-hydroxy-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-OH) and 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-COOH) in whole blood. The cannabinoids were extracted from 500 microL of whole blood by a simple liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and then derivatized by using trifluoroacetic anhydride (TFAA) and hexafluoro-2-propanol (HFIP) as fluorinated agents. Mass spectrometric detection of the analytes was performed in the selected reaction-monitoring mode on a triple quadrupole instrument after negative-ion chemical ionization. The assay was found to be linear in the concentration range of 0.5-20 ng/mL for THC and THC-OH, and of 2.5-100 ng/mL for THC-COOH. Repeatability and intermediate precision were found less than 12% for all concentrations tested. Under standard chromatographic conditions, the run cycle time would have been 15 min. By using fast conditions of separation, the assay analysis time has been reduced to 5 min, without compromising the chromatographic resolution. Finally, a simple approach for estimating the uncertainty measurement is presented.

Keywords
  • Cannabinoids/blood/chemistry
  • Forensic Toxicology
  • Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/methods
  • Humans
  • Molecular Structure
  • Reference Standards
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Substance Abuse Detection/methods
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry
Citation (ISO format)
THOMAS, Aurélien et al. Fast gas chromatography and negative-ion chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry for forensic analysis of cannabinoids in whole blood. In: Journal of pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis, 2007, vol. 45, n° 3, p. 495–503. doi: 10.1016/j.jpba.2007.08.019
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ISSN of the journal0731-7085
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