Employing atmospheric pressure photoionization in liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry to minimize ion suppression and matrix effects for the quantification of venlafaxine and O-desmethylvenlafaxine.

During the development of a method for quantitative determination of venlafaxine and its major metabolite O-desmethylvenlafaxine, elevated concentrations of the analyte as well as co-eluting matrix compounds caused ion suppression. This ion suppression was inconsistent and therefore influenced the reproducibility of detection. The use of atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) in the positive mode was investigated as a tool to circumvent this problem.