Progress on Keto Groups Derivatization of Steroid Hormones in Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Analysis

Steroid hormones have received much attention due to their unique physiological effect, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) has already become the most important analysis technology for determination of steroid hormones. The detection sensitivity and chromatography peaks of steroid hormones by GC-MS are poor because of their polar functional groups such as keto groups and hydroxyl groups; hence, they should be transformed into derivatives that are less polar and more volatile and have higher thermal stability to be suitable for the trace GC-MS analysis. The derivatization of hydroxyl groups and other functional groups that contain an active hydrogen atom has been greatly developed, but it is still necessary to do systematic researches on the derivatization of keto groups. This study reviews the derivatization of keto groups of steroid hormones, including reaction principle, application status of enolisation-silylation, oximation-silylation derivatization, and so on. The problems and research direction were also discussed, which may be a reference to the further research of derivatization of keto groups of steroid hormones.