An analysis method of microwave digestion and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) with octopole reaction system (ORS) was established for the determination of 10 heavy metal elements including Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, As, Cd, Sn, Sb, Hg and Pb in sweetener. Samples were decomposed by HNO3 and H2O2 followed by dilution with ultrapure water then the above 10 heavy metal elements in the solution were analyzed directly by ICP-MS. The use of ORS can eliminate the interference of polyatomic ions dramatically. 45Sc, 89Y, 115In and 209Bi as internal standard elements were used to compensate matrix effect and signal drift. The optimum conditions for the determination was tested and discussed. Under the optimal conditions, the detection limits of the 10 elements were in the range of 0.003-0.038 MICROg x L(-1), the recovery of the samples was in the range of 93.0%-106.6% and the relative standard deviation (RSD) < or = 3.4%, which showed that the method was very precise. The technique was applied for the quality control and safety evaluation of sweetener.