Certification of Drugs of Abuse in a Human Serum Standard Reference Material: SRM 1959

Published

March 24, 2010

Author(s)

Susan S. Tai, Jocelyn L. Prendergast, Lorna T. Sniegoski, Michael J. Welch, Karen W. Phinney, Nien F. Zhang

Abstract

A new Standard Reference Material (SRM) for drugs of abuse in human serum (SRM 1959) has been developed. SRM 1959 is a frozen human serum material fortified with seven drugs of abuse, benzoylecgonine (BZE), methadone (METH), methamphetamine (MAMP), morphine (MOR), nordiazepam (NOR), phencyclidine (PCP), and 11-nor-{Δ}⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (THC-9-COOH). Two independent methods involving ID-GC/MS and ID-LC/MS were used for the value assignment. For THC- 9-COOH, an additional measurement using LC/MS/MS, was also included. All methods used isotopically labeled compounds as internal standards, and solid phase extractions to isolate the analytes from the serum. The GC/MS methods used different clean-up procedures from those used for the LC/MS-based methods. Repeatability with within-set coefficients of variation (CVs) ranged from 0.5 % to 4.3 % for the GC/MS methods and ranged from 0.2 % to 1.2 % for the LC/MS-based methods. Intermediate precision with between-set CVs for all the methods ranged from 0.1 % to 1.1 %. Agreement between the GC/MS and LC/MS methods ranged from 0.8 % to 8.8 %. The results from the methods were combined to obtain the certified concentrations and their expanded uncertainties. This SRM can be used as a control material for laboratories performing analysis of drugs of abuse in blood to test the accuracy of their methods.

Citation

Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry

Volume

397

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

Drugs of abuse, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, GC/MS, isotope dilution, LC/MS, LC/MS/MS, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry, solid phase extraction, SRM, Standard Reference Material

Citation

Tai, S. , Prendergast, J. , Sniegoski, L. , Welch, M. , Phinney, K. and Zhang, N. (2010), Certification of Drugs of Abuse in a Human Serum Standard Reference Material: SRM 1959, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (Accessed October 14, 2025)