Quantitation of sibutramine in human hair using gas chromatography-isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry

An analytical method for quantitation of sibutramine in human hair using gas chromatography (GC)-isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) was newly established. In this article, a case is presented, in which a 3.5-year-old male child accidentally ingested chocolate-like product containing sibutramine, showing various symptoms; he could survived the crisis. About 1 month after the incident, his scalp hair sample was subjected to analysis for the causative sibutramine.

After cryo-grinding for the hair sample, target compound was extracted with methanol, and the solvent layer was evaporated to dryness. The residue was reconstituted in methanol and analyzed by GC-MS/MS, using the selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode with a deuterated isotope internal standard.

The substance was identified as sibutramine; its concentration in the hair sample of the child was 58.6 pg/mg. The calibration curve of sibutramine in hair samples had a good linear relationship in the concentration range of 20-200 pg/mg (r > 0.99); the extraction recovery rate 85.2-91.8%; the interday and intraday precision and accuracy (bias) examined not greater than 9.6%. Sibutramine in human hair had good stability under 3 different storage conditions at room (20 °C), refrigerated (4 °C) and frozen ( - 20 °C) temperatures for at least 7 days.

It should be expected that the method established in this study would contribute to rapid determinations of sibutramine. To our knowledge, this is the first report describing quantitation of sibutramine in an authentic human hair sample by GC-MS/MS.