Rapid identification of pesticides in human oral fluid for emergency management by thermal desorption electrospray ionization/mass spectrometry

• Published in: Journal of mass spectrometry. Vol. 51; no. 2; pp. 97 - 104
• Main Authors: Lee, Chi-Wei, Su, Hung, Chen, Peng-Yu, Lin, Shiang-Jiun, Shiea, Jentaie, Shin, Shyi-Jang, Chen, Bai-Hsiun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.02.2016; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: cotton; decision making; Desorption; detection limit; Detection limits; Emergency preparedness; emergency room; Emergency Service, Hospital; Female; Fluid dynamics; Fluid flow; Fluids; Humans; Ionization; Male; Mass spectrometry; Methanol; Methyl alcohol; oral fluid; Patients; pesticide; Pesticides; Pesticides - analysis; Pesticides - poisoning; point-of-care identification; Poisoning; rapid methods; Saliva - chemistry; Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization - methods; Standard deviation; Suicide; Taiwan; Taiwan; mass spectrometry; emergency room; point-of-care identification; pesticide; oral fluid
• ISSN: 1076-5174; 1096-9888
• DOI: 10.1002/jms.3719

Self‐poisoning with pesticides accounts for approximately one‐third of all suicides worldwide. To expedite rescue in the emergency department, it is essential to develop a point‐of‐care analytical method for rapid identification of ingested pesticides. In this study, five of the most common pesticides ingested by self‐poisoning patients in Taiwan were analyzed from oral fluid samples. Pesticide‐oral fluid mixtures were applied on a cotton swab and then transferred into methanol. A metallic probe was used to sample the methanol solution for subsequent thermal desorption‐electrospray ionization mass spectrometry analysis. Altogether, pesticide sampling, transfer, desorption, ionization, and detection took less than 1 min. The reproducibility of this method (n = 6) was shown in the observed low‐relative standard deviation (<7%) in the detection of pesticide in oral fluid. The detection limits of the pesticides in oral fluid obtained from four human subjects by thermal desorption‐electrospray ionization mass spectrometry were between 1–10 ppb with relative standard deviation 10.7%. Moreover, in this study, linear responses of five pesticides in oral fluid with concentrations between 1 ppb–1 ppm (R2 between 0.9938 and 0.9988) were observed. As the whole analytical process is extremely short, this technique allows for early non‐invasive point‐of‐care identification of pesticides in the oral fluid of self‐poisoning patients in the emergency room, providing important toxicological information for decision‐making during critical resuscitation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.