Development and validation of a LC-MS/MS method for detection and quantification of 18 antidepressants in whole blood

Antidepressants are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in America, with researchers reporting one in six Americans take some form of psychiatric drugs-mostly antidepressants (NBC News, 2016). Antidepressants are often present in combination with other drugs in suicides and drug-related deaths, so a sensitive and specific method to detect and quantify antidepressants is necessary. We developed a method for the detection and quantification of 18 different antidepressants in whole blood, with a range of 2.5-900 ng/mL and LOQ of 2.5 ng/mL. Three hundred uL of blood was used and the analytes were extracted using solid-phase extraction and analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), monitoring two transitions per analyte. The method was validated and applied to 10 positive authentic samples, and blind proficiency testing was additionally performed to test the method’s ability to successfully quantitate the analytes