Determination of 13 Organic Toxicants in Human Blood

Pesticides and antidepressants are frequently misused in drug-facilitated crime because of their toxicological effect and easy-availability. Therefore, it is essential for the development of a simple and reliable method for the determination of these organic toxicants in biological fluids. Here, we report on an applicable method by the combination of optimized liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) procedure and high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) to identify and quantify dimethoate, omethoate, dichlorvos, carbofuran, fenpropathrin, diazepam, estazolam, alprazolam, triazolamm, chlorpromazine, phenergan, barbitone and phenobarbital in human blood. The method demonstrated a linear calibration curve in range of 20 - 500 μg/L (r > 0.994). The accuracy evaluated by recovery spiked at three different concentrations (50, 100 and 200 μg/L) was in the range of 58.8 - 83.1% with a relative standard deviations (RSD) of 3.7 - 7.4%. The limits of quantification ranged over 6.7 - 33.3 μg/L. This method was proved to be simple and reliable, and was thus successfully applied to forensic toxicology.

The full article is published online in Analytical Sciences and is available to access free of charge.