Simple Analysis of Amphetamines in Human Whole Blood and Urine by Headspace Capillary Gas Chromatography with Large Volume Injection

Abstract

A very simple method for the analysis of methamphetamine and amphetamine in human whole blood and urine by headspace gas chromatography (GC) has been presented. It neither needs solid-phase microextraction nor cryogenic trapping devices, but only a conventional capillary GC instrument with flame ionization detection (FID). The two special points to be mentioned in this method are the in-matrix derivatization of amphetamines for vaporization and the capability of injection of as large as 5 mL of the headspace vapor into a GC instrument in the splitless mode for sensitive detection. After heating a whole blood or urine sample containing amphetamines, α-methylbenzylamine (internal standard, IS) and heptafluoro-n-butyryl chloride under alkaline conditions in a 7.0-mL vial at 90 °C for 20 min, 5 mL of the headspace vapor was drawn with a glass syringe and injected into the gas chromatograph. During injection the column was at 40 °C to trap the analytes, and then the oven temperature was programmed up to 320 °C. Sharp peaks were obtained for each analyte and IS, and only a relatively small number of background impurity peaks for the whole blood and urine samples. The detection limits for each amphetamine were estimated to be 0.1 μg mL−1 for whole blood and 0.03 μg mL−1 for urine. Precision and linearity were also tested to confirm the reliability. Methamphetamine and amphetamine could be determined from whole blood and urine obtained at autopsy in three methamphetamine poisoning cases. The identity of each peak appearing in the gas chromatograms was confirmed by GC/mass spectrometry.