The determination of ethanol in blood and urine by mass fragmentography

A mass fragmentographic technique for a rapid, specific and sensitive determination of ethanol in blood and urine is described. A Varian gas chromatograph coupled through an all-glass membrane separator to a Finnigan quadripole mass spectrometer and interfaced to a computer system is used for ethanol determination in blood and urine samples. A procedure for plotting calibration curves for ethanol quantitation is also described. Quantitation is achieved by plotting the peak area ratios of undeuterated-to-deuterated ethanol fragment ions against the amount of ethanol added. Representative results obtained by this technique are included.