Method development for simultaneous determination of amphetamine type stimulants and cannabinoids in urine using GC–MS

Abstract In this study, the method for simultaneous determination of amphetamine-type stimulant drugs and cannabinoids using GC–MS was developed for urinalysis. For the improvement of analytical efficiency, tri-fluoroacetic anhydride and pentafluoropropanol were used as derivatization reagents and derivatization conditions such as compositions, reaction time, and temperature were optimized. Also metabolically generated glucuronides such as 11-nor-9-carboxy-Δ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol were removed through alkaline hydrolysis. The extraction method was optimized by changing the pH of urine and extraction time. The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.49–1.71 ng/mL as 3 signal-to-noises (s/n) whereas the limit of quantification (LOQ) of 10 s/n was 1.62–5.70 ng/mL. Repeatability and reproducibility were obtained as inter-day (n = 5), intra-day (n = 3), and inter-person (n = 3). The measured accuracy ranged as inter-day: − 9.0–9.1%, intra-day: − 10.2–12.6%, and inter-person: − 12.9–8.2%, and the precisions were estimated as inter-day: 0.5–16.1%, intra-day: 2.1–14.2%, and inter-person: 0.8–19.3%. This method was also successfully applied to real samples.