Determination of pharmaceuticals of various therapeutic classes by solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry analysis in hospital effluent wastewaters

A multi-residue analytical method has been developed and validated for determining a selection of 16 pharmaceuticals: the anti-epileptic carbamazepine, seven analgesic/anti-inflammatory drugs (mefenamic acid, indomethacine, ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, ketorolac and acetaminophen), the analgesic opiate codeine, two antidepressants (fluoxetine and paroxetine), beta-blockers (atenolol and propranolol), antibiotic (trimethoprim, metronidazole, and erythromycin) and the anti-ulcer ranitidine in hospital effluent wastewaters. The method allows simultaneous extraction of the pharmaceuticals compounds by solid-phase extraction (SPE) using the Waters Oasis HLB at pH 7. The analytes were then identified and quantitatively determined by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). Recoveries of the pharmaceuticals were higher than 75%, with the exception of ranitidine (45%) and the overall variability of the method was below 9%. The instrumental detection limit (IDL) varied between 2 and 31 pg injected, the method detection limit (LOD) was between 7 and 47 ng/L in spiked hospital effluent. The precision of the method, calculated as relative standard deviation (RSD), ranged from 0.3 to 4.9%. A detail study off matrix effect is included in this work, regarding to signal suppression in these effluent wastewaters from a hospital complex samples. The developed analytical method was applied for preliminary data results in effluent wastewaters from a hospital.