Bioequivalence

High-performance liquid chromatography

Pharmacokinetics

Chromatography

Formic acid

Cephalosporin

Biochemistry

Cephradine

Electrospray ionization

Antibiotics

Internal medicine

Selected reaction monitoring

Analytical Chemistry (journal)

Medicine

Protein precipitation

Mass spectrometry

Chemistry

Calibration curve

Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry

Detection limit

Tandem mass spectrometry

Journal of Chromatography B

A rapid and simple procedure was developed for the determination of cephradine in human plasma using liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–ESI-MS/MS). After trichloroacetic acid (TCA) precipitation of proteins from plasma samples, cephradine and cefaclor (the internal standard; IS) were eluted on a CN column. The isocratic mobile phase used consisted of acetonitrile–water–formic acid (25:75:0.1, v/v/v). Cephradine and the IS were both detected in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode at the transitions: m/z 350.0 → 90.8 for cephradine and m/z 368.1 → 106.0 for the IS, respectively. The calibration curve was linear over the concentration range from 0.05 to 50 μg/ml, and correlation coefficients were greater than 0.996. The coefficient of variation of assay precision was less than 9.36%, and its accuracy ranged from 87.92% to 111.16%. The chromatographic run time for each plasma sample was less than 3 min. The developed method was successfully applied to a bioequivalence study of cephradine in healthy male volunteers.

Rapid and simple method for determination of cephradine in human plasma using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS): Application to the bioequivalence study