What LC-MS system for a clinical lab

[Howard]

Hello everybody,
I'm working in an academic clinical lab and I plan to buy a first LC-MS-MS system for blood immunosuppressants, drugs of abuse and a few steroids measurements.
I have selected 3 systems (Waters Acquity TQD, API 3200, API 3200 QTrap, Agilent 6410) but the choice is difficult since I have few experience in MS.
Could you please share your experience ? Any advice would be welcome.
Thank you very much.

[yangz00g]

Since you will do mostly quantitative work, you don't need a Qtrap. To deal with blood matrix, Water's Z-Spay may require you clean the sources more frequently than other configurations unless you have riguous sample treatment. Other than that, look for the most sensitive one with good local service support and price.

[mfiligenzi]

Depending on your throughput requirements, you may also want to look at the software available from each of the manufacturers. All of them have positive and negative aspects and you want to make sure that no system's drawbacks cause you too many problems. Get a demo from each of the manufacturers if at all possible.

[Howard]

Thank you for your reply. Indeed, all systems have positive and negative aspects.
The sensitivity is an important point but difficult to evaluate.
Do you think all 3 instruments are equivalent ? It seems that the API3200 is the most sensitive one but having different companies for the LC and MS instruments might be a disadvantage.

[Loekie]

Have you looked at the Thermo products? they have complete sytems ms and LC even with multiplexing

[yog123]

Hi
In my opinion API3200 is good if you compare with others. You can combine Shimadzu LC with API 3200 MS. I am working on API 4000 and 5000. I am very much happy with their results. It comes with anlayst software. Easy to use. I haven't worked on thermo or waters. I heard very much positive about API 3000, 4000 and 5000.

[Howard]

Thank you Yog.
Loekie: I had a very bad experience with your company. The support was the most terrible I encountered during my carreer.

[indium]

Just a comment regarding the software. I have used MassHunter, Xcalibur, MassLynx and Analyst. I would say that Analyst is the least intuitive software. There other three are about equal.

[yog123]

Indium: You may be right since I have used only Analyst. I feel it easy since we are working on quantitative analysis. It is useful in analysis of 500 samples every day.