ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the principles, the technology and the applications of ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) and mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) or tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS-MS) in the analysis of veterinary drug residues. UPLC coupled with MS detection is one of the most powerful analytical tools, which provides high sensitivity, selectivity, specificity, and rapid analysis. The chapter examines the application of the quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, safe (QuEChERS) technique used for the analysis of different groups of veterinary drugs with examples. It discusses UPLC-MS and UPLC-MS-MS applications for the determination of veterinary drug residues in food, environmental and biological samples. The combination of generic extraction methods, such as QuEChERS and UHPLC-MS/MS, considerably reduces the analysis time. Several solvents and their combinations were tested for the extraction of analytes. The most common is solid-phase extraction as a technique for extraction, isolation and concentration of drugs and veterinary medicines from a variety of samples.
