Estimation of measurement uncertainty for the quantification of 11-nor-delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid and its glucuronide in urine using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

J Anal Toxicol. 2014 Apr;38(3):164-70. doi: 10.1093/jat/bku008. Epub 2014 Feb 10.

Abstract

Recently, the estimation of the measurement uncertainty has become a significant issue in the quality control of forensic drug testing. In the present study, the uncertainty of the measurement was calculated for the quantification of 11-nor-delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (THC-COOH) and its glucuronide conjugate (THC-COOH-glu) in urine using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The procedure was based on liquid-liquid extraction of a volume of urine (800 µL) with ethyl acetate. The sources of uncertainty were identified and classified into four major categories as follows: standard preparation, calibration curve, method precision and bias. The overall contribution of combined standard uncertainty on THC-COOH increased in the order of standard preparation (0.9%), method precision (10.4%), calibration curve (30.3%) and bias (58.4%) and, while calibration curve (53.0%) and bias (40.4%) gave the bigger contributions to the combined standard uncertainty for THC-COOH-glu than method precision and standard preparation, which accounted for 6.3 and 0.3%, respectively. The reliability of a measurement was expressed by stating the expanded uncertainty of the measurement result at 95% confidence level. The concentrations of THC-COOH and THC-COOH-glu in the urine sample with their expanded uncertainties were 10.20 ± 1.14 ng/mL and 25.42 ± 5.01 ng/mL, respectively.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Calibration
  • Cannabis
  • Chromatography, Liquid / methods*
  • Chromatography, Liquid / standards
  • Dronabinol / analogs & derivatives*
  • Dronabinol / urine
  • Glucuronides / urine*
  • Humans
  • Linear Models
  • Liquid-Liquid Extraction
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Reference Standards
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Substance Abuse Detection / methods
  • Substance Abuse Detection / standards
  • Substance-Related Disorders / urine
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry / methods*
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry / standards
  • Uncertainty

Substances

  • Glucuronides
  • 11-nor-delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid
  • Dronabinol