A novel LC-IDMS/MS method for the determination of the cardiac glycosides digoxin and digitoxin using caesium adducts

This article describes an essential improvement of the published candidate reference measurement procedure for digoxin and digitoxin and compares it with the original method. The novelty of the method lies in the measurement of the caesium (Cs+) ion as product ion in the multiple reaction monitoring mode (MRM) with potentially improved analytical specificity whilst retaining a comparable accuracy and precision at therapeutic levels. The original measurement procedure used the single-ion mode (SIM). The dissociation of the Cs+ adducts in MRM leads to the formation of Cs+ ions as main charged product in high yield. The present method results in a product ion signal intensity in MRM for digoxin and digitoxin of up to 80% of the precursor ion signal intensity in SIM. The precision, expressed as the coefficient of variation of the new method for digoxin was 3.18% (SIM) and 2.28% (MRM) at a concentration of 0.66 microg/l and 1.26% (SIM) or 1.65% (MRM) at 2.0 microg/l. The corresponding data for digitoxin were 1.21% (SIM) and 1.62% (MRM) at 24 microg/l and 1.46% (SIM) and 1.13% (MRM) at 42 microg/l.