Liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry method for the quantification of deserpidine in human plasma: Application to a pharmacokinetic study

A sensitive and rapid liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometric (LC/MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the determination of deserpidine in human plasma. The plasma samples were prepared using liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) with ethyl ether-dichloromethane (3:2, v/v). Chromatographic separation was accomplished on an Ultimate XB-C18 column. The mobile phase consisted of methanol-5mM ammonium acetate-formic acid (72:28:0.036, v/v/v). Detection of deserpidine and the internal standard tropisetron was achieved by tandem mass spectrometry with an electrospray ionization interface in positive ion mode. The lower limit of quantification was 4.0pg/ml. The linear range of the method was from 4.0 to 2000pg/ml. The intra- and inter-day precisions were lower than 14.7% in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD), and the accuracy was within +/-8.7% in terms of relative error (RE). This validated method was successfully applied for the evaluation of pharmacokinetics of deserpidine after a single oral administration dose of 0.25mg deserpidine to 22 healthy volunteers.