Direct Screening of Urine for MDMA and MDA by Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry*
Journal of Analytical Toxicology 2003 DOI: 10.1093/jat/27.1.15 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Method comparison study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1,000 |
| Population | Clinical patient urine samples |
| Topics | MDMA |
| Keywords | Atmospheric-pressure chemical ionization Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry Urine Tandem mass spectrometry Detection limit |
| Citations | 43 |
| Key points | LC-MS-MS detected almost four times as many MDMA-positive urine samples as the immunochemical method, with no false positives and one false negative. |
Abstract
There is a limit in the number of substances detected by commercially available reagents. It is therefore important to have other, complementary techniques. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) may offer one possibility. An LC-MS-MS procedure based on the detection of positive ions after atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) was developed for direct measurement of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine in urine. It was compared with Online Amphetamines. The LC-MS-MS methodology showed improved sensitivity (1 00-ng/mL cutoff and specificity with a coefficient of variation of 10%. It was compared to the immunochemical analysis using 1000 clinical patient urine samples. The positive samples were confirmed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The LC-MS-MS method detected almost four times as many samples positive for MDMA compared to the immunochemical method, with no false positives and one false negative. Our study suggests that LC-MS-MS offers an alternative to immunochemical methods in drug of abuse screening.