Analysis of tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines in snuff by ethyl acetate extraction and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

A rapid, selective and sensitive method for routine analysis of the four tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines, N′-nitrosonornicotine, N′-nitrosoanatabine, N′-nitrosoanabasine and 4-(methyl-nitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone in snuff has been developed. The nitrosamines were isolated by ethyl acetate extraction and analysed by LC–MS–MS. Except for evaporation and filtration, no additional clean-up steps are needed in the proposed method. The detection limits for standard in solvent are between 0.0005 and 0.001 μg/ml (0.005 and 0.01 μg/g).