[Simultaneous determination of opioid compounds in human urine by UPLC-MS/MS]

To propose a method for simultaneous determination of codeine(COD), 6-monoacetyl-morphine (6-MAM), morphine (MOR), morphine-3-glucuronide (M3G) and morphine-6-glucuronide (M6G) in human urine by ultra performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS).

After precipitation of protein by acetonitrile, the urine samples, with added the morphine-d3 (MOR-d3) and morphine-3-Glucuronide-d3 (M3G-d3) as internal standards, were pre-treated by Sirocco protein precipitation plate, and then analyzed by UPLC-MS/MS.

The limit of detection was 0.2 ng/mL for both COD and MAM, the limit of quantitation was 0.5 ng/mL for both COD and MAM. The limit of detection was 0.5 ng/mL for MOR, M3G and M6G, the limit of quantitation was 1 ng/mL for them. The linear correlation coefficients were not less than 0.9997, both the inter-day and intra-day precisions were less than 10%, the recoveries were in the range of 70.0% to 98.3%, the matrix effects were about 50.5% to 99.0%.

This proposed method is simple, rapid and accurate, it could be applied in forensic toxicological analysis.