title: A rapid gas-liquid chromatographic method for the determination of cotinine and nicotine in biological fluids.
abstract: A rapid method is described for the simultaneous measurement of nicotine and cotinine in biological fluids using capillary column gas-liquid chromatography. Using 100 microliters sample volume the lower limit of detection for both nicotine and cotinine was 100 pg mL-1, allowing the method to be used for the measurement of these compounds in both smokers and non-smokers. The extraction time is 3 min per sample, and by using multi-pipetting and vortexing systems 250 samples can be extracted per day. The average coefficient of variation over the nicotine range 1.0 to 100 ng mL-1 was 3.9% and for cotinine over the range 1.0 to 1000 ng mL-1 was 2.2%. Saliva cotinine concentrations were quantitatively related to passive exposure to parental smoking in a population study of 1118 non-smoking schoolchildren.
authors.affiliation: Nicotine Laboratory, New Cross Hospital, London, UK.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Feyerabend
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Russell
mesh_terms: D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D003367:Cotinine / Q000032:analysis* / Q000097:blood / Q000652:urine; D006801:Humans; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D009538:Nicotine / Q000032:analysis* / Q000097:blood / Q000652:urine; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D009538:Nicotine; D003367:Cotinine