Progress on Keto Groups Derivatization of Steroid Hormones in Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometric Analysis

Steroid hormones have poor detection sensitivity and chromatography peaks because of their polar functional groups such as keto groups and hydroxyl groups. So these groups need to transform into derivatives which have lower polar, more volatile and higher thermal stability to suitable for the trace GC-MS analysis. The derivatization technology of hydroxyl groups and other functions which containing active hydrogen atom has been greatly developed, but it is still necessary to do systematic research on the keto group derivatization. In this article, keto groups derivatization of steroid hormones were reviewed, including reaction principle, application status of enolisation-silylation, oximation-silylation derivatization technology etc. The problems and research direction were also discussed.