Analysis of tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines in snuff by ethyl acetate extraction and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

A rapid selective and sensitive method for routine analysis of the four tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines, N'-nitrosonornicotine, N'-nitrosoanatabine, N'-nitrosoanabasine and 4-(methyl-nitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone in snuff has been developed. The nitrosamines were isolated by ethyl acetate extraction and analysed by LC-MS-MS. Except for evaporation and filtration, no additional clean-up steps are needed in the proposed method. The detection limits for standard in solvent are between 0.0005 and 0.001 mug/ml (0.005 and 0.01 mug/g). (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.