Determination of metformin and other biguanides in forensic whole blood samples by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

Metformin is an anti-diabetic drug in the biguanide class which also includes phenformin and buformin. Because of the potential adverse effects of the biguanides, a reliable liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method using pneumatically assisted electrospray ionization was developed for the quantification of the drugs in both live and post-mortem human whole blood. The blood proteins were precipitated by the addition of a mixture of methanol and acetonitrile, and the extract was cleaned up by cation-exchange solid-phase extraction to eliminate ion suppression effects. The separation was performed by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography. Matrix-matched calibrants combined with isotope dilution of metformin were used for calibration. The detection limits were 0.01 mg/L for metformin and phenformin and the relative intra-laboratory reproducibility standard deviations were less than 6% at concentrations of 1-10 mg/L. The mean true recoveries were greater than 86%.