title: Automated needle trap heart-cut GC/MS and needle trap comprehensive two-dimensional GC/TOF-MS for breath gas analysis in the clinical environment.
abstract: This study was intended to evaluate low-volume (20 mL) multibed needle trap (NTD) sampling combined with heart-cut gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC x GC/TOF-MS) for trace gas analysis under clinical conditions. NTDs, high-throughput automatic desorption and separation systems, were tested in vitro and within a study in 11 patients undergoing cardiac surgery with respect to reproducibility, reliability, and clinical applicability. NTD-heart-cut GC/MS analysis of standard mixtures containing different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) yielded relative standard deviations (RSDs) from 4.0% to 18.5%. Substance adsorption was stable for 1 day if NTDs were closed on both ends and was stable for approximately 7.8 h when NTD tip ends had to be left open during autosampler storage. Even in the presence of high concentrations of contaminants linearity of heart-cut GC/MS was conserved. In patients' breath potential biomarkers could be determined even in the presence of very high concentrations of sevoflurane. Profiles of blood-borne biomarkers, intravenous drugs, and clinical contaminants were characterized. Comprehensive GC x GC/TOF-MS may be used as a screening tool for new biomarkers, if patterns are generated from deconvoluted normalized areas. Needle trap sampling in combination with hyphenated chromatographic techniques can thus be used to provide well-tailored solutions for complex problems occurring in clinical breath analysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Rostock, Schillingallee 35, 18057 Rostock, Germany.
authors.forename: Maren
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mieth
authors.forename: Jochen K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Schubert
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gröger
authors.forename: Bastian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sabel
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kischkel
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fuchs
authors.forename: Dietmar
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hein
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zimmermann
authors.forename: Wolfram
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Miekisch
mesh_terms: D001944:Breath Tests / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D004867:Equipment Design; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D005740:Gases / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D011650:Pulmonary Alveoli / Q000737:chemistry*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D005740:Gases