Multiclass analysis of 23 veterinary drugs in milk by ultraperformance liquid chromatography–electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

► UPLC–MS/MS method for the simultaneous detection and confirmation veterinary drugs in milk. ► Rapid tool for confirming the presence of 23 veterinary drug residues in milk. ► Extracting more than 30 samples in less than 1 h by using the proposed method. An ultraperformance liquid chromatography–electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC–MS/MS) method for the simultaneous detection and confirmation of 23 veterinary (multiclass) drugs in milk was developed and validated. The analytes were extracted by acetonitrile, evaporated and injected into the UPLC–MS/MS system on a Waters UPLC HSS T3 column in gradient mode. Data acquisition under MS/MS was achieved by applying multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) of two ion transitions per compound to provide a high degree of specificity. Results showed good repeatability, and recoveries for the 12 macrolide, 7 β-lactam and 2 lincosamide antibiotics and 2 other veterinary drugs (morantel, orbifloxacin) used in milk averaged 51.8–139.0%, 51.5–100.6%, 82.4–102.5% and 87.5–99.4%, respectively. The coefficients of variation (C.V.) of the recoveries were less than 15% for intraday and interday precisions. The limits of quantification (LOQs) were all lower than 5 ng/ml. This method was applied to 17 fresh milk samples and only lincomycin was found in milk samples under allowable levels. Overall, this method is a suitable and rapid tool to confirm the presence of 23 veterinary drug residues in milk.