Challenges in Implementing a Screening Method for Veterinary Drugs in Milk Using Liquid Chromatography Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

High resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) is a valuable tool for the analysis of chemical contaminants in food. Our laboratory has successfully developed methods to screen for veterinary drug residues using liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF). There have been, however, significant challenges as methods are transferred from the development stage to routine regulatory analysis. Having experimental retention time and product ion information for analytes greatly facilitates the ability to determine if residues found by the HAMS searching software are false detects. These data were collected for over 200 veterinary drug residues using LC Q-TOF MS. The screening levels of detection for over 150 veterinary drug residues in milk were determined, and over half of those tested can be detected at concentrations of 10 ng/mL or less; 72% can be found in milk when present at 100 ng/mL. Tentative identification of the product ions from these analytes is also presented.