Analysis of Psychotropic Drugs in Whole Blood Utilizing Simultaneous Scan/MRM Measurements (1)

When analyzing medicinal toxicants using GC-MS, the presence of fatty acids and cholesterol, which exist in large quantities in whole blood, can interfere with detection. In fact, profiles for triazolam and etizolam, benzodiazepine psychotropic drugs, overlap with the cholesterol chromatogram, making data analysis difficult with a single GC-MS system. Furthermore, the retention indices for triazolam and etizolam are adjacent, and both have characteristic m/z ratios of 313 and 342, respectively, making it even more difficult to distinguish these compounds.
Consequently, there are high expectations for utilizing GC-MS/MS. This Application Data Sheet introduces an example of simultaneous scan/MRM measurements for the mass separation of cholesterol from triazolam and etizolam in whole blood. Refer to this in conjunction with Application Datasheet No. 75, which introduces an example of simultaneous screening for other medicinal toxicants by applying scan data from simultaneous scan/MRM measurements to the “GC/MS Forensic Toxicological Database”.