Comparison of Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry and Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Methods to Measure Salivary Cotinine Levels in Ill Children

Cotinine is the preferred biomarker to validate levels of tobacco smoke exposure (TSE) in children. Compared to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay methods (ELISA) for quantifying cotinine in saliva, the use of liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) has higher sensitivity and specificity to measure very low levels of TSE. We sought to compare LC-MS/MS and ELISA measures of cotinine in saliva samples from children overall and the associations of these measures with demographics and TSE patterns. Method: Participants were nonsmoking children (N = 218; age mean (SD) = 6.1 (5.1) years) presenting to a pediatric emergency department. Saliva samples were analyzed for cotinine using both LC-MS/MS and ELISA. Limit of quantitation (LOQ) for LC-MS/MS and ELISA was 0.1 ng/mL and 0.15 ng/mL, respectively. Results: Intraclass correlations (ICC) across methods = 0.884 and was consistent in sex and age subgroups. The geometric mean (GeoM) of LC-MS/MS = 4.1 (range: < LOQ to 382 ng/mL; 3% < LOQ) which was lower (p < 0.0001) than the ELISA GeoM = 5.7 (range: < LOQ to 364 ng /mL; 5% < LOQ). Similar associations of cotinine concentrations with age ( <^> fi < 0.10, p < 0.0001), demographic characteristics (e.g., income), and number of cigarettes smoked by caregiver ( <^> fi > 0.07, p < 0.0001) were found regardless of cotinine detection method; however, cotinine associations with sex and race/ethnicity were only found to be significant in models using LC-MS /MS-derived cotinine. Conclusions: Utilizing LC-MS /MS-based cotinine, associations of cotinine with sex and race/ethnicity of child were revealed that were not detectable using ELISA-based cotinine, demonstrating the benefits of utilizing the more sensitive LC-MS/MS assay for cotinine measurement when detecting low levels of TSE in children.