Determination of Steroid Hormones in Water Samples by Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry Using Parallel Reaction Monitoring

One of the negative consequences of the increased use of medicines is the potential reason for releasing various pharmaceutical residues into the environment. Continuous development of analytical methodologies to identify and quantify such chemicals in natural waters is of major importance to public health. This study aimed to set up a sufficiently sensitive LC-MS method to quantitate targeted androgens and estrogens in water samples. Method development was based on the official EPA Method 539:2010. In our experiments, estrogens were analyzed in the form of their dansyl derivatives. Such derivatization, using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode, improved sensitivity of the original method for estrogens by one or two orders of magnitude. Using electrospray in positive ionization (HESI+) mode resulted in a robust, selective, and sensitive to quantify the targeted steroids with 10 pg L -1 method detection limit (MDL). The linearity of the method was good with correlation coefficients (R) in the range of 0.997-1.000 and with a calibration range of 5-1000 pg L -1 in drinking water. The method was successfully applied to analyze drinking water and mineral water samples collected in the area of Pécs (Baranya County, Hungary).