Caffeine is a useful indicator to quickly assess liver function. High-throughput tests are needed for single-point caffeine measurements, with low cross-reactivity toward its major metabolite, paraxanthine. A newly developed ELISA was compared with an LC-MS/MS reference method, using 60 saliva samples from 10 individuals, before and after caffeine intake. Bland-Altman plot, Student t-test and F-test were used to compare the two methods. Proteins were precipitated using organic solvent and the caffeine recoveries compared with those obtained using sample microfiltration. The antibody, with a low cross-reactivity toward paraxanthine (0.08%), allows quantification of caffeine in saliva samples from 2.5 mu g/L to 125 mu g/L with high precision and the ELISA shows comparable results to those obtained by LC-MS/MS. A one-step protein precipitation using an organic solvent provides comparable results to a more costly and time-consuming microfiltration pre-treatment of samples. The new ELISA is a fit-for-purpose method to accurately and precisely determine caffeine in saliva samples.
