Determination of LSD in urine with high-performance liquid chromatography--mass spectrometry.

A rapid, specific, and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry method has been developed for routine determination of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in urine. It includes sample purification by extraction into an organic solvent and back-extraction to an acetate buffer, reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, and detection with a single quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with an atmospheric pressure ionization electrospray interface. Trideuterated LSD was used as internal standard. The limit of detection was 0.02 ng/mL and the calibration curve was linear from 0.05 to 10 ng/mL. Within-and between-day coefficients of variation were 3.5% and 4.0% respectively and extraction recovery was 91%.