Abstract
Toxicological screening is the analysis of a biological specimen to detect and identify compounds in patients admitted to the hospital with acute intoxication of unknown origin. The screening of a wide range of toxicologically relevant compounds in biological samples is a serious challenge for clinical laboratories. The high selectivity and sensitivity of liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry or tandem mass spectrometry technology provides an attractive alternative to the current methods. For these reasons, an increasing number of applications for multi-target screening or general screening of unknown compounds in biological matrices are being published. This paper is an overview of sample clean-up, chromatographic separation and mass spectrometry detection procedures which can be combined to obtain screening methods adapted to the constraints and needs of various laboratories, and none specifically in clinical toxicology. Currently the techniques are in the hands of specialists, principally in academic institutes. However, the evolution in technology should allow application of the techniques as a tool in toxicology laboratories and thus more widespread exploitation of their potential.
©2011 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Method comparison: where do we draw the line?
- Review
- Current role of liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry in clinical toxicology screening methods
- Minireview
- Molecular diagnostics for pharmacogenomic testing of fluoropyrimidine based-therapy: costs, methods and applications
- Opinion Paper
- Preanalytical quality improvement: from dream to reality
- Point
- Towards more complete specifications for acceptable analytical performance – a plea for error grid analysis
- Counterpoint
- Closing the brain-to-brain loop in laboratory testing
- General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
- Harmonization of growth hormone measurements with different immunoassays by data adjustment
- Comparison of the results from two different External Quality Assessment Schemes supports the utility of robust quality specifications
- High-throughput LC-MS/MS method for monitoring sirolimus and everolimus in the routine clinical laboratory
- Performance of the Roche Total Mycophenolic Acid® assay on the Cobas Integra 400®, Cobas 6000® and comparison to LC-MS/MS in liver transplant patients
- Diagnostic efficiency of truncated area under the curve from 0 to 2 h (AUC0–2) of mycophenolic acid in kidney transplant recipients receiving mycophenolate mofetil and concomitant tacrolimus
- Good performance of an immunoassay based method for nevirapine measurements in human breast milk
- Measurement of plasma amino acids by Ultraperformance® Liquid Chromatography
- Interchangeability of blood gas, electrolyte and metabolite results measured with point-of-care, blood gas and core laboratory analyzers
- Granularity Index of the SYSMEX XE-5000 hematology analyzer as a replacement for manual microscopy of toxic granulation neutrophils in patients with inflammatory diseases
- Direct chromogenic substrate immuno-capture activity assay for testing of factor VII-activating protease
- The antinuclear antibody assay: developing criteria for reflexive anti-dsDNA antibody testing in a laboratory setting
- A simple liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for measuring metanephrine and normetanephrine in urine
- Monoclonal gammopathy missed by capillary zone electrophoresis
- Adaptation of the Diazyme Direct Enzymatic HbA1c Assay for a microplate reader at room temperature
- Validation and Outcome Studies
- Laboratory assessment of iron status in pregnancy
- Cardiovascular Diseases
- Blood cells characteristics as determinants of acute myocardial infarction
- No evidence for an association between the rs2824292 variant at chromosome 21q21 and ventricular fibrillation during acute myocardial infarction in a German population
- Letters to the Editor
- Letter to the Editor Reply: Statistical methods for assessment of added usefulness of new biomarkers
- Reply to Vavrova et al. Clin Chem Lab Med 2011;49:89–92
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Method comparison: where do we draw the line?
- Review
- Current role of liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry in clinical toxicology screening methods
- Minireview
- Molecular diagnostics for pharmacogenomic testing of fluoropyrimidine based-therapy: costs, methods and applications
- Opinion Paper
- Preanalytical quality improvement: from dream to reality
- Point
- Towards more complete specifications for acceptable analytical performance – a plea for error grid analysis
- Counterpoint
- Closing the brain-to-brain loop in laboratory testing
- General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
- Harmonization of growth hormone measurements with different immunoassays by data adjustment
- Comparison of the results from two different External Quality Assessment Schemes supports the utility of robust quality specifications
- High-throughput LC-MS/MS method for monitoring sirolimus and everolimus in the routine clinical laboratory
- Performance of the Roche Total Mycophenolic Acid® assay on the Cobas Integra 400®, Cobas 6000® and comparison to LC-MS/MS in liver transplant patients
- Diagnostic efficiency of truncated area under the curve from 0 to 2 h (AUC0–2) of mycophenolic acid in kidney transplant recipients receiving mycophenolate mofetil and concomitant tacrolimus
- Good performance of an immunoassay based method for nevirapine measurements in human breast milk
- Measurement of plasma amino acids by Ultraperformance® Liquid Chromatography
- Interchangeability of blood gas, electrolyte and metabolite results measured with point-of-care, blood gas and core laboratory analyzers
- Granularity Index of the SYSMEX XE-5000 hematology analyzer as a replacement for manual microscopy of toxic granulation neutrophils in patients with inflammatory diseases
- Direct chromogenic substrate immuno-capture activity assay for testing of factor VII-activating protease
- The antinuclear antibody assay: developing criteria for reflexive anti-dsDNA antibody testing in a laboratory setting
- A simple liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for measuring metanephrine and normetanephrine in urine
- Monoclonal gammopathy missed by capillary zone electrophoresis
- Adaptation of the Diazyme Direct Enzymatic HbA1c Assay for a microplate reader at room temperature
- Validation and Outcome Studies
- Laboratory assessment of iron status in pregnancy
- Cardiovascular Diseases
- Blood cells characteristics as determinants of acute myocardial infarction
- No evidence for an association between the rs2824292 variant at chromosome 21q21 and ventricular fibrillation during acute myocardial infarction in a German population
- Letters to the Editor
- Letter to the Editor Reply: Statistical methods for assessment of added usefulness of new biomarkers
- Reply to Vavrova et al. Clin Chem Lab Med 2011;49:89–92