Determination of breath gas composition of lung cancer patients using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry with monolithic material sorptive extraction

A gas chromatographic–mass spectrometric method with monolithic material sorptive extraction (MMSE) pretreatment was developed to determine the breath gas composition in lung cancer patients. MonoTrap silica monolithic and hybrid adsorbent was selected as the extraction medium during MMSE, given its strong capacity to extract volatile organic compounds (VOC) from exhaled gas. Under the appropriate conditions, high extraction efficiency was achieved. Using the selected ion‐monitoring mode, the limit of detection (signal‐to‐noise ratio 3) for the benzene series was 0.012–2.172 ng L^?1. The limit of quantitation (signal‐to‐noise ratio, 10) was 0.042–7.24 ng L^?1. The linearity range of the method was 4–400 ng L^?1. Average recovery of the benzene series at lower concentrations was 65–74% (20 ng L^?1). The relative standard deviation of benzene series contents determined within the linear range of detection was <10% of the mean level determined. Our proposed method is simple, rapid and sensitive, and can be competently applied to determine the breath gas composition of lung cancer patients. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.