Solid-phase microextraction and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry in drug analysis Review Article

Drug monitoring is highly dependent on the development of new analytical instruments or techniques. Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a new solvent-free sample preparation technique. There are two distinct techniques for the SPME method. Fiber SPME is a simple technique that integrates sampling, extraction, concentration and sample introduction into a single procedure. Fiber SPME has number of advantages such as simplicity, low cost and compatibility with gas chromatography (GC), GC/mass spectrometry (MS), liquid chromatography (LC) and LC/MS. Another technique known as in-tube SPME is an automated version of SPME that can be easily coupled to a LC autosampler for on-line sample preparation, separation and quantitation. Through these advantages, SPME has now gained a lot of interest in a broad field of analysis including drug, food, biological and pharmaceutical samples. This review is focused on the use of SPME and LC/MS for the analysis of drugs and metabolites from biological samples, including urine, blood and hair.