Total residue analysis of swabs by ion mobility spectrometry.

Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is a technique attractive for use within the pharmaceutical industry for at-line determination of residues on swabs taken from the surfaces of manufacturing equipment for the purposes of cleaning validation or verification. In this study, the development of a novel IMS method to provide a measurement of total residue present on a swab is described. The technique is based upon quantitation of charged atmospheric gas reactant ion consumption (RIC) within the instrument as a direct measure of the mass of total ionizable residue. Coupled with the conventional analysis of the active pharmaceutical ingredient within a single 2 min analysis, RIC determination provided the benefit of a single measure representative of the presence of multiple residue components or unknown components. To account for differences in response between components of a model drug product (Cymbalta) and its associated cleaning agents, a strategy was proposed to determine a "worst case" total residue test result based on RIC. A limitation of the IMS method was its incompatibility with cleaners containing a high concentration of inorganic components. The methodology provided a range from 5-50 microg per 25 cm(2) surface area and acceptable analyte recovery (50-100%).