Ephedrine analogues are stimulants that are explicitly required to be quantified and characterized in the Anti-Doping Prohibited List of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Given the difficulty of distinguishing diastereoisomers, the qualitative and quantitative analyses of ephedrine diastereoisomers are difficult.Methods: An ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC/MS/MS) method was developed to detect five ephedrine analogues, and two pairs of diastereoisomers were identified using this method. The samples were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using a tandem mass spectrometer with an electrospray ionization source in multiple reaction detection mode after one-step dilution.
Results:The effective detection limits of this method were below 0.5 ng/mL. A matrix effect (range: 83.4% to 102%) was observed in quality control samples. The intra-and inter-day precision was lower than 9.16% and 8.60%, respectively, and the accuracy was within ±8.0%.
Conclusions:The method is efficient, accurate, stable and sensitive, and fully meets the requirements for the detection of ephedrine substances in stimulants.
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