Beyond LC-MS: The Next Frontier in Clinical Mass Spectrometry

Clinical implementation of mass spectrometry (MS) has been relatively slow compared with nucleic acid and antibody-based methods. Although MS was first described in the early 1900s, it was not applied clinically until the 1970s with gas chromatography, and even then, in a limited capacity. MS saw wider deployment in the 1990s when soft-ionization techniques, such as electrospray ionization, brought together liquid chromatography (LC) and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The capacity of LC-MS/MS to measure multiple drugs and metabolites quickly and accurately in complex biological matrices solved several diagnostic challenges.
Source: Clinics in Laboratory Medicine - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Preface Source Type: research