High throughput screening various abused drugs and metabolites in urine by liquid chromatography–heated electrospray ionization/tandem mass spectrometry

An integrated method of liquid chromatography–heated electrospray ionization/tandem mass spectrometry was evaluated for high throughput screening of various abused drugs in urine. Chromatographic analysis was performed on a C18 reverse phase column using a linear gradient of 10 mM ammonium acetate containing 0.1% formic acid–methanol as mobile phase and the total separation time was 7 min. A simple and rapid sample preparation method used was by passing urine samples through a 0.22 μm PVDF syringe filter. The detection limits of the studied abused drugs in urine were from 0.6 ng mL−1 (ketamine) to 9.0 ng mL−1 (norcodeine). According to the results, the linear range was from 1 to 1200 ng mL−1 with relative standard deviation (R.S.D.s) value below 14.8% (intra-day) and 24.6% (inter-day). The feasibility of applying the proposed method to determine various abused drugs in real samples was examined by analyzing urine samples from drug-abused suspects. The abused drugs including ketamines and amphetamines were detected in suspected urine samples. The results demonstrate the suitability of LC–HESI-MS/MS for high throughput screening of the various abused drugs in urine.