Power of Orbitrap-based LC-high resolution-MS/MS for comprehensive drug testing in urine with or without conjugate cleavage or using dried urine spots after on-spot cleavage in comparison to established LC-MS or GC-MS procedures.

Reliable, sensitive, and comprehensive urine screening procedures by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) with low or high resolution (HR) are of high importance for drug testing, adherence monitoring, or detection of toxic compounds. Besides conventional urine sampling, dried urine spots are of increasing interest. In the present study, the power of LC-HR-MS/MS was investigated for comprehensive drug testing in urine with or without conjugate cleavage or using dried urine spots after on-spot cleavage in comparison to established LC-MS or GC-MS procedures. Authentic human urine samples (n = 103) were split in 4 parts. One aliquot was prepared by precipitation (UP), one by UP with conjugate cleavage (UglucP), one spot on filter paper cards and prepared by on-spot cleavage followed by liquid extraction (DUSglucE), and one worked-up by acid hydrolysis, liquid-liquid extraction, and acetylation for GC-MS analysis. The 3 series of LC-HR-MS/MS results were compared among themselves, to corresponding published LC-MS data, and to screening results obtained by conventional GC-MS. The reference libraries used for the 3 techniques contained over 4500 spectra of parent compounds and their metabolites. The number of all detected hits (770 drug intakes) was set to 100%. The LC-HR-MS/MS approach detected 80% of the hits after UP, 89% after UglucP, and 77% after DUSglucE, which meant over one-third more hits in comparison to the corresponding published LC-MS results with ≤49% detected hits. The GC-MS approach identified 56% of all detected hits. In conclusion, LC-HR-MS/MS provided the best screening results after conjugate cleavage and precipitation.