SYSTEMATIC TOXICOLOGICAL ANALYTICAL SCREENING OF BIOMEDICAL SAMPLES BY GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY–MASS SPECTROMETRY. VALIDATION BY IDENTIFICATION OF TOXIC ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
Examples of optimization are considered of a new approach to toxicological analytical screening of biological fluids in patients with various symptoms of acute intoxication. The procedure used includes head-space solid-phase micro extraction of vapor components over blood and urine samples and extracts of the samples treated with derivatizing agents, analyzed by chromatography–mass spectrometry (GCMS) and automated interpretation of resulting mass chromatograms. The developed approach features a combination of head-space analysis of volatile compounds and analysis of derivatized extracts. The use of different derivatizing agents favors a more reliable identification of volatile compounds without using reference compounds. The key advantage of the proposed screening procedure is that it combines high throughput due to automated processing and interpretation of GCMS data and reliability due to reduced probability of both first- and second-type mistakes.