A simple, cost effective, and fast gas chromatography method with mass spectrometry detection (GC-MS) for simultaneous measurement of formic acid, glycolic acid, methoxyacetic acid, ethoxyacetic acid and 2-hydroxyethoxyacetic acid in serum and urine was developed and validated. This multi-analyte method is highly suitable for clinical and emergency toxicology laboratory diagnostic, allowing identification and quantification of five most common acidosis inducing organic acids present in cases of alcohol intoxication. Furthermore, when patients are admitted to emergency unit at late stage of toxic alcohol intoxication, the concentration of parent compound may be already low or not detectable. This new method employs a relatively less used class of derivatization agents - alkyl chloroformates, allowing the efficient and rapid derivatization of carboxylic acids within seconds. The entire sample preparation procedure is completed within 5 min. The optimal conditions of derivatization procedure have been found using chemometric approach (design of experiment). The calibration dependence of the method was proved to be quadratic in the range of 25-3000 mg L(-1), with adequate accuracy (97.3-108.0%) and precision (<12.8%). The method was successfully applied for identification and quantification of the selected compounds in serum of patients from emergency units.

Department of Analytical Chemistry Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Albertov 6 128 43 Prague 2 Czech Republic

Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology 1st Faculty of Medicine Charles University Prague and General University Hospital 121 08 Prague 2 Czech Republic

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