Quantitation by MS imaging: needs and challenges in pharmaceuticals

“MS imaging, which is particularly useful in ophthalmology, neurology, dermatology, renal or hepatotoxicity, is not limited to any therapeutic area.” As MSI is a label-free technique, it distinguishes itself from the other imaging approaches that require labeled target molecules, such as MRI, PET or autoradiography. Thanks to this unique feature, MSI allows the detection of thousands of molecules (targeted or untargeted) from histological tissue sections in a single experiment. It is highly specific, with 0.001 Da resolution, enabling the discrimination of all ionized molecules, such as drugs and their metabolites, at 1 ppm mass accuracy. Therefore, this approach is suitable...