Analysis of urinary nucleosides. II. Comparison of mass spectrometric methods for the analysis of urinary nucleosides

Qualitative and quantitative analyses of urinary nucleosides have diagnosti c potential as tumour markers. We have developed separation techniques link ed to mass spectrometric detection in order to overcome the problems associ ated with past identification and quantitation methods. The three methods o f analysis utilised were: gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), hig hperformance liquid chromatography/ion-trap mass spectrometry (HPLC/ITMS) a nd capillary liquid chromatography/triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (Cap LC/TQMS). Here we compare the relative effectiveness of each of the techniq ues for subsequent application in the systematic study of urinary nucleosid e profiles in cancer patients. All three methods proved to be valuable tech niques for such urinary nucleoside analyses, and a combination rather than one single choice is concluded as the ideal. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.