Expert Insight: On-Demand Webinar Highlights: Developing Accurate LC-MS/MS Methods for Hair and Oral Fluid Alternative Matrices

In a recent SelectScience webinar, we were joined by forensic and clinical toxicology expert from Phenomenex, Matt Brusius, to learn about the best techniques when working with complex alternative samples, such as hair and oral fluid, that require extensive sample pre-treatment and preparation to be analyzed by LC.

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At the end of the webinar, Matt answered live questions from our listeners — read on for the highlights from this Q&A session:

Q: For the hair method, how did you select the extraction solvent and was this dependent on the type of hair?
MB: Before we even involved the hair, we looked at stability for the drugs we were evaluating in different types of acid, bases and eventually decided on moving forwards testing acetone as an extraction solvent. We then looked at the different types of hair and used the same solvent extraction on all of them and evaluated the clean-up.

Q: Would the oral fluid buffer clean-up method change if using a different brand of oral fluid device or are they fairly similar in chemical composition?
MB: When we showed the recovery values between two different devices, the trend was the same between them, so I’m inclined to think they would all behave fairly similarly. But it is important to do your own internal validation of any device that you are planning on using.

Q: If using one single SPE tube for oral fluids, does the method need to be adjusted to elute off as many analytes as possible?
MB:  No, you don’t have to worry about modifying the method. With this single cartridge method, the clean-up is balanced by the extraction.  This means that the elution solvent is strong enough to remove analytes from the sorbent and but the buffer dye stays on the cartridge, so the method does not have to be modified to remove anything else.   

Find out more on this topic from Matt by watching the full webinar on demand>>

SelectScience runs 3-4 webinars a month across various scientific topics, discover more of our upcoming webinars>>