ICP-MS in drug development: high-throughput analysis of strontium and calcium in bone, tissue and plasma.

Background: The high-throughput analysis of strontium and calcium in plasma, tissue and bone (femur) using inductively coupled plasma-MS is described. Method validation, the results and experience obtained during sample analysis are highlighted.

Results: The different matrices were destructed with concentrated nitric acid by heating at 60°C overnight. Using this approach it was possible to analyze large numbers of samples in parallel.

Conclusion: Inductively coupled plasma-MS proved to be a highly sensitive, robust and efficient technique for the analysis of several different biological samples. A total of 6767 samples were analyzed, and the performance of the method was illustrated by the fact that only 0.2% of the samples had to be reanalyzed due to anomalous results and ISR for all matrices fulfilled the acceptance criteria.