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

A sensitive liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometric (LC–MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the determination of rosuvastatin in human plasma. The plasma samples were prepared using liquid–liquid extraction with ethyl ether. Chromatographic separation was accomplished on a Zorbax XDB-C18 (150 mm × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 μm) column. The mobile phase consisted of methanol–water (75:25, v/v, adjusted to pH 6 by aqueous ammonia). Detection of rosuvastatin and the internal standard (IS) hydrochlorothiazide was achieved by ESI MS/MS in the negative ion mode. The lower limit of quantification was 0.020 ng/ml by using 200 μl aliquots of plasma. The linear range of the method was from 0.020 to 60.0 ng/ml. The intra- and inter-day precisions were lower than 8.5% in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD), and the accuracy was within −0.3 to 1.9% in terms of relative error (RE). Compared with the existing methods, the validated method offered increased sensitivity. The method was successfully applied for the evaluation of pharmacokinetics of rosuvastatin after single oral doses of 5, 10 and 20 mg rosuvastatin to 10 healthy volunteers.