Development of an analytical method to confirm toxic trimethylated tin in human urine

Dimethyltin dichloride (DMTC) is widely used as a heat stabilizer in manufacturing the polyvinyl chloride. We previously reported a case of acute DMTC poisoning with neurological manifestations very similar to trimethylated tin (TMT) encephalopathy, based on results of speciation analysis of methylated tins in the patient's urine with use of a combination of high performance liquid chromatography and inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (HPLC–ICP–MS), which yielded peaks corresponding to DMT and TMT. In this study, we developed an analytical method to confirm TMT in urine using high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS/MS), and found TMT molecular ion in the patient's urine.