title: Simultaneous and cost-effective determination of ethylene glycol and glycolic acid in human serum and urine for emergency toxicology by GC-MS.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A simple, cost-effective, and fast gas chromatography method with mass spectrometry detection (GC-MS) for simultaneous measurement of ethylene glycol, 1,2-propylene glycol and glycolic acid was developed and validated for clinical toxicology purposes.
  
  
  METHODS
  Successful derivatization of glycolic acid with isobutyl chloroformate was achieved directly in serum/urine while glycols are simultaneously derivatized by phenylboronic acid. The entire sample preparation procedure is completed within 10 min.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The assay was proved to be quadratic in the range of 50 to 5000 mgL(-1) with adequate accuracy (96.3-105.8%) and precision (CV ≤ 8.9%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The method was successfully applied to quantify the selected compounds in serum of patients from emergency units and the results correlated well with parallel GC-FID measurements (R(2) 0.9933 for ethylene glycol and 0.9943 for glycolic acid).
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and General University Hospital, 121 08 Prague 2, Czech Republic. Electronic address: tomas.hlozek@vfn.cz.
authors.forename: Tomáš
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hložek
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and General University Hospital, 121 08 Prague 2, Czech Republic; Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science, Department of Analytical Chemistry, Albertov 6, 128 43 Prague 2, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Miroslava
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bursová
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and General University Hospital, 121 08 Prague 2, Czech Republic; Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science, Department of Analytical Chemistry, Albertov 6, 128 43 Prague 2, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Radomír
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Čabala
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004630:Emergencies; D019855:Ethylene Glycol / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*; D006016:Glycolates / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D006801:Humans; D013997:Time Factors; D014116:Toxicology
chemical_list: D006016:Glycolates; C031149:glycolic acid; D019855:Ethylene Glycol
keywords: Chloroformate; GC-MS; Glycolic acid; Glycols; Toxicology