Direct injection versus liquid-liquid extraction for plasma sample analysis by high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry

Direct injection versus liquid-liquid extraction for post-dose human plasma sample analysis by high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) have been studied using a drug candidate compound. For the direct-injection method, an Oasis(R) HLB column (1 x 50 mm, 30 mu m) was used as the on-line extraction column and a conventional Waters symmetry C18 column (3.9 x 50 mm, 5 mu m) was used as the analytical column. Each plasma sample (100 mu L) was mixed with 100 mu L of a working solution of the internal standard in aqueous 0.05 M ammonium acetate (pH 6.9), and portions (10 mu L) of these samples were then injected into the LC/MS/MS system. For the liquid-liquid extraction method, a YMC Basic C18 column (2.0 x 50 mm, 5 mu m) was used as the analytical column. Each sample (0.5 mL) was extracted with methyl tert-butyl ether and the extract was reconstituted and injected into the LC/MS/MS system. The total analysis time for both methods was 2.0 min per sample. The accuracy, inter-day precision and intra-day precision obtained from the quality control samples were within 8% for both methods. The analysis results of post-dose human plasma samples showed that the deviations of 91% of the concentrations obtained using the direct-injection method were within +/-20% from the concentrations obtained using the liquid-liquid extraction method, and the overall average percentage deviation was -1.5%. The results showed that the two methods were equivalent in terms of total chromatographic run time, accuracy and precision, However, for a batch of 100 samples, the sample preparation time for the direct-injection method was only about 25% of the time required for liquid-liquid extraction, This decrease in sample preparation time resulted in the doubling of the overall sample analysis throughput, Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.