JIST

Abstract

Paroxetine is a schedule H antidepressant drug. It has occasionally been implicated in lethal overdoses. To iden-tify and estimate the level of this drug in toxicological samples is a forensic challenge. Attempts have been made in the past to extract and detect paroxetine in blood samples by using a variety of techniques such as gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrom-etry, high pressure liquid chromatography, liquid chroma-tography-mass spectrometry, etc. However, no studies have been reported in other biological samples. In this study, an attempt has been made to identify paroxetine in biological samples by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in multiple reaction monitoring mode at 330.15192.11. The product ion spectra proved to be very helpful in identification of the drug. Furthermore, multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) enhances the reli-ability and specificity of the method. The use of modi-fied mobile phase produces good quality of qualifier ions. This method appears to be simple, sensitive, specific, and reliable.