ABSTRACT
Objective To establish an analysis method for the detection of 6 arsenic compounds [AsC, AsB, As(Ⅲ), DMA, MMA and As(V)] in blood and urine by high-performance liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry(HPLC-ICP-MS), and apply it to real cases. Methods Triton was used to damage cells, and then EDTA·2Na·2H2O was used to complex arsenic compounds in cells, and sonication and protein deposition by acetonitrile were performed for sample pretreatment. With the mobile phase consisted of ammonium carbonate and ultrapure water, gradient elution was per-formed for obtaining the arsenic compounds in samples, which were analysed by ICP-MS with Hamilton PRP-X100 column. Results The limits of detection in blood were 1.66-10 ng/mL, while the lower limits of quantitation in blood ranged from 5 to 30 ng/mL. The limits of detection in urine were 0.5-10 ng/mL, while the lower limits of quantitation in urine were 5-30 ng/mL. The relative standard deviation of inter-day and intra-day precisions was less than 10%. This method had been successfully applied to 3 cases. Conclusion This study has established an analysis method for detecting 6 common arsenic compounds in blood and urine, which can be used to detect the arsenic compounds in the blood and urine from ar-senic poisoning cases as well as the patients under arsenic treatment.