Development of a solid-phase extraction-HPLC/single quadrupole MS method for quantification of perfluorochemicals in whole blood

A method for the determination of perfluorooctane-sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) simultaneously with 10 closely related perfluorochemicals (PFCs) in human whole blood was developed and validated. PFOS and PFOA are used in various applications, for example, as surfactants and plastic additives, and are subject to environmental and health research due to their persistence. The main part of the data on PFCs in human blood is from serum samples, analyzed mainly by ion pair extraction followed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and negative electrospray (ESI) tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The analytical method developed here is suitable for human whole blood and involves solid-phase extraction (SPE) and HPLC negative electrospray single quadrupole mass spectrometry (HPLC/ES-MS). A whole blood aliquot was treated with formic acid and extracted on a octadecyl (C18) SPE column. The PFCs were isolated with methanol, and quantification was performed using single quadrupole mass spectrometry and perfluoroheptanoic acid as internal standard. Validation was performed in the range 0.3-194 ng/mL with recovery between 64 and 112% and limit of detection in the 0.1-0.5 ng/mL range for 11 of the 12 PFCs studied. We applied this method to 20 whole blood samples collected in 1997-2000 from the Swedish population in the ages 24-72. Eleven of the 12 PFCs were detected, and they were quantitatively and qualitatively confirmed using triple quadrupole LC/MS/MS analysis. PFOS, perfluorooctanesulfonamide, perfluorohexanesulfonate, PFOA and perfluorononanoic acid were quantified in all samples. In addition, perfluorohexanoic acid, perfluorodecanoic acid, perfluorodecanesulfonate, perfluoroundecanoic acid, perfluorododecanoic acid, and perfluorotetradecanoic acid were detected in some samples. This study shows that SPE and single quadrupole MS can be applied for extraction and quantification of PFCs in human whole blood, resulting in selectivity and low detection limits.