A simple, one-step collection procedure and the availability of specimen for every donor make umbilical cord a simple alternative for newborn toxicology.
Reported in this paper is an interesting study describing the simultaneous analysis of caffeine and cotinine, the primary metabolite of nicotine, in umbilical cord tissue by LC-tandem MS, to establish if the mother was exposed to these substances during gestation.
Will umbilical cord testing be an improvement on the currently used meconium assay for newborn toxicology studies?
Read the paper for free until 1st June.
The detection of caffeine and cotinine in umbilical cord tissue using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry
Joseph Jones, Raquel Magri, Rosemarie Rios, Mary Jones, Charles Plate and Douglas Lewis
Anal. Methods
DOI: 10.1039/C0AY00625D
