Rapid Simultaneous Determination of Cyanide, Azide, and Ethanol in Whole Blood Using Headspace Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

The rapid detection and quantification of toxic substances and alcohol in biological specimens stand as imperative tasks, particularly in instances of unnatural demise and poisoning incidents. In this study, we developed a high-throughput simultaneous method for analyzing cyanide, azide, and ethanol in whole blood. This methodology involves a simple manual pretreatment step, entailing the sequential addition of an internal standard, ascorbic acid, and phosphoric acid to whole blood samples (within 1 min), followed by headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis (within 14 min). The method exhibits high linearity (correlation coefficients, > 0.9996), sensitivities of ng/mL-level detection, and satisfactory precision (relative standard deviation of less than 5.8% for cyanide, 8.8% for azide, and 2.9% for ethanol) and trueness (relative error within 7.3% for cyanide, 17% for azide, and 6.9% for ethanol). The proposed method, which does not require complex analytical techniques and possesses several advantages such as rapidity, simplicity, and high sensitivity and selectivity, is expected to contribute to the practical routine analysis in forensic and toxicological fields. Graphical Abstract