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Determination of metformin and other biguanides in forensic whole blood samples by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography–electrospray tandem mass spectrometry
Author(s) -
Sørensen Lambert K.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
biomedical chromatography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.4
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1099-0801
pISSN - 0269-3879
DOI - 10.1002/bmc.1615
Subject(s) - chemistry , chromatography , phenformin , electrospray ionization , tandem mass spectrometry , mass spectrometry , liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry , electrospray , metformin , diabetes mellitus , medicine , endocrinology
ABSTRACT Metformin is an anti‐diabetic drug in the biguanide class which also includes phenformin and buformin. Because of the potential adverse effects of the biguanides, a reliable liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method using pneumatically assisted electrospray ionization was developed for the quantification of the drugs in both live and post‐mortem human whole blood. The blood proteins were precipitated by the addition of a mixture of methanol and acetonitrile, and the extract was cleaned up by cation‐exchange solid‐phase extraction to eliminate ion suppression effects. The separation was performed by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography. Matrix‐matched calibrants combined with isotope dilution of metformin were used for calibration. The detection limits were 0.01 mg/L for metformin and phenformin and the relative intra‐laboratory reproducibility standard deviations were less than 6% at concentrations of 1–10 mg/L. The mean true recoveries were greater than 86%.