To discuss the feasibility of analyzing bisacodyl, desacetyl bisacodyl and bisacodyl dicycloproyl carboxylate in health foods by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).

After ultrasonic extraction with acetonitrile, the sample was analyzed by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS.

GC-MS could be used for preliminary qualitative analysis of bisacodyl and its analogues, while LC-MS/MS was suitable for qualitative and quantitative analysis of bisacodyl and its analogues. The 3 kinds of target analytes showed good linear relationships between 0.1–20.0 ng/mL by LC-MS/MS, with correlation coefficients (r) better than 0.998. The limits of detection were between 0.003–0.006 ng/mL and the limits of quantitation were all lower than 0.020 ng/mL. At the 3 kinds of spiked levels, the recoveries ranged from 83.35%–116.90% and the relative standard deviations were 0.48%–8.22% (n=6), respectively. GC-MS analysis was applied in 10 suspected samples, while bisacodyl structural analogues were detected in 3 samples. LC-MS/MS analysis showed that bisacodyl and desacetyl bisacodyl were present in the 3 suspected samples, with content in the ranges of 0.12%–1.92%.

The developed method is accurate, simple and rapid, which can satisfy the requirements of related identification work and provide a reference for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of substances with similar structures.