성충동약물치료 시행에 따른 소변 중 남성호르몬의 분석법 확립

Validation of Analytical Method for Male Sex Hormone Monitoring in Urine due to the Chemical Castration

"The Act on Medication Treatment of Sexual Impulse of Sex Offenders" known as chemical castration has been effective since July 2011 in Korea. According to the law, monitoring of male sex hormone in urine is enforced to request National Forensic Service more than once a month after injection of medicine designed to reduce sex impulse. We estab- lished a rapid and sensitive method for the monitoring of testosterone (T) and epitestosterone (E) in human urine by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Three mL of urine was pretreated by solid-phase extraction for purification and performed enzymatic hydrolysis. The pretreated samples were extracted twice with 2 ml of ethyl acetate and n-hexane (2 : 3). The separation was applied on Thermo Hypersil GOLD C18 column (1.9 µm, 100×2.1 mm). A gradient elution of methanol and water of 0.1% formic acid were used as mobile phase and the retention time was less than 10 min. LC-MS/MS system coupled with an electrospray ionization source was performed in multiple reaction monitoring mode. The transitions of the analytes executed as following: m/z 289→97, 109 for T and E, m/z 292→109 for T-d3 and E-d3 as internal standards. The validation results of the method were satisfactory. The limits of detection were 0.05 ng/ml and the limits of quantification were 0.1 ng/ml. This method was successfully applied to real human urine sample. The developed method will be useful for monitoring T/E ratio in urine of sex offenders.