Depression is among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders of our society, leading to an increase in
antidepressant drug consumption that needs to be accurately determined in whole blood samples in
Forensic Toxicology Laboratories. For this purpose, this work presents a new gas chromatography tandem
mass spectrometry (GC–MS/MS) method targeting the simultaneous and rapid determination of 14
common Antidepressants in whole blood: 13 Antidepressants (amitriptyline, citalopram, clomipramine,
dothiepin, fluoxetine, imipramine, mianserin, mirtazapine, nortryptiline, paroxetine, sertraline, trimipramine
and venlafaxine) and 1 Metabolite (N-desmethylclomipramine). Solid-phase extraction was
used prior to chromatographic separation. Chromatographic and MS/MS parameters were selected to
improve sensitivity, peak resolution and unequivocal identification of the eluted analyte. The detection
was performed on a triple quadrupole tandem MS in selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode in tandem, using
electronic impact ionization. Clomipramine-D3 and trimipramine-D3 were used as deutered internal
standards.
The validation parameters included linearity, limits of detection, lower limit of quantification, selectivity/
specificity, extraction efficiency, carry-over, precision and robustness, and followed internationally
accepted guidelines. Limits of quantification and detection were lower than therapeutic and subtherapeutic
concentration ranges. Overall, the method offered good selectivity, robustness and quick
response (<16 min) for typical concentration ranges, both for therapeutic and lethal levels.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio
