Simultaneous determination of ten steroid hormones in animal origin food by matrix solid-phase dispersion and liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

An UPLC-MS/MS method for determination of ten steroid hormones in animal origin food has been developed with pretreatment of the samples by matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD). The MSPD conditions, including the dispersing sorbents, elution solvents, ratio of sorbent to sample and the volume of the elution solvent have been investigated and optimised, and the method has been evaluated and validated. The results showed that the developed method has satisfactory linearity between the MS/MS responses of the analytes and the concentration of the steroid hormones, and the limits of the detection can reach 0.01 μg/kg for most of the analytes. The spiking recoveries of the steroid hormones in chicken, pork, beef and sausage samples were between 76.8% and 98.7% with RSDs lower than 10%. The results demonstrated that the developed approach has high sensitivity and repeatability, and can rapidly determinate the trace residues of steroid hormones in complex food matrices.