Development of a broad toxicological screening technique for urine using ultra-performance liquid chromatography and time-of-flight mass spectrometry Original Research Article

Withdrawal of the support for the REMEDi HS drug profiling system has necessitated its replacement within our laboratories with an alternative broad toxicological screening technique. To this end, a novel method, based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) and time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry, was developed for the routine analysis of urine samples. Identification was achieved by comparison of acquired data to libraries containing more than 300 common drugs and metabolites, and was based on a combination of retention time, exact mass and fragmentation patterns. Validation data for the method is presented and comprised an evaluation of the following parameters: precision; transferability of the methodology between the six collaborating laboratories; specificity; extraction recovery and stability of processed samples; matrix effects and sensitivity.