A Unified Sample Preparation Procedure for General Unknown Screening (GUS) of Compounds in Whole Blood Samples

General Unknown Screening (GUS) is the screening of many compounds from a whole blood matrix, which is especially important in cases where an affected individual is incapacitated, unaware of what was taken, or deceased. This application note describes a universal sample preparation procedure for whole blood samples and a method for neutralising the undesirable effects of strong solvents to allow immediate chromatographic analyses. This is a simple and fast procedure that yields successful and reliable analyte identification.