A simple sample preparation for simultaneous determination of chloramphenicol and its succinate esters in food products using high-performance liquid chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometry

A simple method is described for the determination of chloramphenicol and its succinate esters in food products. Examination of food products using high-performance liquid chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometry showed the presence not only of chloramphenicol but also of its succinate forms. A scheme is proposed for determining chloramphenicol and its succinate esters (calculated as chloramphenicol) in meat (beef, pork, poultry), milk, liver, kidney, eggs, fish and honey. Analytes are extracted from a 1.0g sample with 5ml acetonitrile. It was found that using the method of standard addition and diluting the extract with water leads to the elimination of matrix effects and also eliminates errors associated with peak splitting due to the separate elution of the differing forms of the analyte. Validation results were satisfactory, with recoveries from 85% to 111% (meat, milk, liver, kidney, eggs, fish and honey) and a relative standard deviation (RSD) lower than 13% for spiked levels of 0.3, 1.0 and 5 mu gkg(-1). The limits of detection and quantification (calculated as chloramphenicol for all forms) were 0.1 and 0.3 mu gkg(-1), respectively. The RSD of the results of the analysis was <10%. The duration of the analysis was less than 1 h.