Analysis of pharmaceutical products and herbal medicines using ambient mass spectrometry

Pharmaceutical analysis is an important approach to understand the active pharmaceutical ingredients and impurities in pharmaceutical products and herbal medicines, as well as to develop novel methodologies for their quality assessment and control. The development of ambient mass spectrometry (MS) in the beginning of the 21st century provides us with the opportunity for conducting rapid and straightforward analysis of pharmaceutical products and herbal medicines. In this study, we review the field of ambient MS on the analyses of pharmaceutical products and herbal medicines that have been published to date. The ambient ionization techniques applied for analysis of pharmaceutical products and herbal medicines are summarized and commented, with analytical strategies emphasized, and the typical analyses and applications are discussed.