Wang Hm

Thermal desorption extraction proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (TDE-PTR-MS) for rapid determination of residual solvent and sterilant in disposable medical devices.

Thermal desorption extraction proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (TDE-PTR-MS) has been exploited to provide rapid determination of residual solvent and sterilant like cyclohexanone (CHX) and ethylene oxide (EO) in disposable medical devices. Two novel methods are proposed for the quantification of residual chemicals in the polyvinyl chloride infusion sets with our homemade PTR-MS. In the first method, EO residue in the solid infusion sets (y, mgset(-1)) is derived through the determination of EO gas concentration within its packaging bag (x, ppm) according to the correlative equation of y=0.00262x. In the second one, residual EO and CHX in the solid infusion sets are determined through a time integral of their respective mass emission rates. The validity of the proposed methods is demonstrated by comparison with the experimental results from the exhaustive extraction method. Due to fast response, absolute concentration determination and high sensitivity, the TDE-PTR-MS is suggested to be a powerful tool for the quality inspection of disposable medical devices including the quantitative determination of residual solvent and sterilant like CHX and EO.

Exhaled gases online measurements for esophageal cancer patients and healthy people by proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry

Esophageal cancer is a prevalent malignancy. There is a considerable demand for developing a fast and noninvasive method to screen out the suspect esophageal cancer patients who may undergo further clinical diagnosis.

Glass bottle sampling solid phase microextraction gas chromatography mass spectrometry for breath analysis of drug metabolites

Breath analysis is a non-invasive approach which may be applied to disease diagnosis and pharmacokinetic study. In the case of offline analysis, the exhaled gas needs to be collected and the sampling bag is often used as the storage vessel. However, the sampling bag usually releases some extra compounds, which may interfere with the result of the breath test. In this study, a novel breath sampling glass bottle was developed with a syringe needle sampling port for solid phase microextraction (SPME). Such a glass bottle scarcely liberates compounds and can be used to collect exhaled gas for ensuing analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The glass bottle sampling SPME-GC-MS analysis was carried out to investigate the breath metabolites of myrtol, a multicompound drug normally used in the treatment of bronchitis and sinusitis. Four compounds, α-pinene, 2,3-dehydro-1,8-cineole, d-limonene and 1,8-cineole were found in the exhaled breath of all eight volunteers who had taken the myrtol. While for other ten subjects who had not used the myrtol, these compounds were undetectable. In the SPME-GC-MS analysis of the headspace of myrtol, three compounds were detected including α-pinene, d-limonene and 1,8-cineole. Comparing the results of breath and headspace analysis, it indicates that 2,3-dehydro-1,8-cineole in the breath is the metabolite of 1,8-cineole. It is the first time that this metabolite was identified in human breath. The study demonstrates that the glass bottle sampling SPME-GC-MS method is applicable to exhaled gas analysis including breath metabolites investigation of drugs like myrtol.

Online exhaled gas measurements for radiotherapy patients by proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry

The present study assessed whether exhaled breath analysis using proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) could screen for radiation exposure. As the intensity of proton transfer reaction reagent ion H3(16)O(+) can be calculated with the intensity of H3(18)O(+), the intensity of H3(18)O(+) was monitored to observe the stability of the PTR-MS instrument during the experiment. The PTR-MS was applied for detecting the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the exhaled breath from 42 radiotherapy patients and other 61 patients who had not received radiotherapy. All patients were enrolled in the local cancer hospital. In the experiment, the subjects breathe slowly to the PTR-MS through a direct inlet system without any sampling bag or tube. The breath mass spectrometric data was statistically analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test and stepwise discriminant analysis to find the characteristic ions of radiation exposure. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis was applied for a combination of the characteristic ions. The PTR-MS instrument was stable as the intensity of reaction ion H3(16)O(+) was maintained in 1.1%. Through statistically analysis, we found 6 kinds of characteristic ions of radiation exposure, specifically mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) 93, m/z 41, m/z 102, m/z 79, m/z 131, and m/z 143. The sensitivity (true positive rate) and specificity (true negative rate) were 78.6% and 82.0% respectively. The integrated area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.869. The results in our study demonstrated the potential of the online breath tester PTR-MS as a non-invasive screening for radiation exposure.