Analytica Chimica Acta 750 (2012) 132–151 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Analytica Chimica Acta jou rn al hom epa ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/aca SPME – Quo vadis? Barbara Bojko, Erasmus Cudjoe, German A. Gómez-Ríos, Krzysztof Gorynski, Ruifen Jiang, Nathaly Reyes-Garcés, Sanja Risticevic, Érica A.S. Silva, Oluranti Togunde, Dajana Vuckovic 1 , Janusz Pawliszyn ∗ Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G1 h i g h l i g h t s ◮ Recent developments in SPME rele- vant to future grown of its applica- tion are reviewed. ◮ Strategies to sample complex matri- ces are emphasized. ◮ Technologies facilitating on-site and in vivo sampling/sample preparation are described. g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 17 April 2012 Received in revised form 29 June 2012 Accepted 30 June 2012 Available online 13 July 2012 Keywords: Sampling Sample preparation SPME In vivo On-site Solventless a b s t r a c t Solid phase microextraction (SPME) has experienced rapid development and growth in number of appli- cation areas since its inception over 20 years ago. It has had a major impact on sampling and sample preparation practices in chemical analysis, bioanalysis, food and environmental sciences. A significant impact is expected in clinical analysis as well as pharmaceutical and medical sciences in the near future. In this review, recent developments of SPME and related technologies are discussed including an in-vial standard gas system for calibration of SPME in high throughput mode; a thin film geometry with high extraction efficiency SPME for gas chromatography (GC) and liquid chromatography (LC) analyses; and couplings of SPME with portable instruments permitting on-site measurements. Also, the latest advances in the preparation of sorbents applicable for direct extraction from complex biological matrices as well as applications of these extraction phases in food analysis and biomedical studies such as therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacokinetics are described. Finally, recent trends in metabolomics analysis and examples of clinical monitoring of biomarkers with SPME are reviewed. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Perspective The solid phase microextraction (SPME) approach to sampling and sample preparation has been growing in popularity among sci- entists from different disciplines fuelled by number of its unique properties (Table 1). Several reviews [1–5] and a recent book [6] have been published to track the evolution of the technology. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 519 888 4641; fax: +1 5197460435. E-mail address: janusz@uwaterloo.ca (J. Pawliszyn). 1 Present address: Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, Uni- versity of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, M5S 3E1. According to Thomson Reuters’s Web of Science, to this date more than 10,000 reports have been published describing differ- ent aspects of the technology including more than 500 application reviews. The number of articles and citations has been increas- ing every year, which has reached more than 1100 and 25,000 a year, respectively. Chemical applications of the technology lead the way with more than 7000 SPME-related publications followed by biochemistry and food science, each at more than 2000, and envi- ronmental science more than 1000. There are a relatively small, but growing number of publications describing pharmaceutical appli- cations and even less for medical applications, but this is expected to increase as per recent developments summarized in this contri- bution. 0003-2670/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2012.06.052