Agilent Technologies and South Bend Medical Foundation LC/MS/MS

Agilent Technologies and South Bend Medical Foundation have collaborated to develop urine testing methods to meet the new mandatory US guidelines for federal workplace drug testing. The new guidelines, which took effect on 1 October, will allow for the first-time use of liquid chromatography/triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) for confirmatory urine drug testing.

The resulting methods will be validated per National Laboratory Certification Program guidelines by the staff at South Bend. The methods will use the same column so that all five required drug classes can be analysed on a single LC/MS/MS instrument without system changes. The methods will be accompanied by well-documented standard operating procedures, including sample preparation, to accelerate implementation and facilitate training of laboratory personnel.

Use of LC/MS/MS for urine drug confirmations speeds testing and is claimed will reduce cost-per-sample compared to previous methods. In addition, several new target drugs have been added to the panel, several cut-off concentrations have been adjusted and the minimum requirements for interference testing have been satisfied for amphetamines and opiates. Also, the new requirement specifying at least 10 data points across a peak can be met.