Determination of lacidipine in human plasma by LC-MS/MS: Application in a bioequivalence study


This study aimed to conduct a sensitive, simple, and reliable liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the quantification of lacidipine in human plasma.

In this method, the plasma samples were extracted from human plasma using methanol as the precipitant and nisoldipine as internal standard (IS). The analytes were separated on a Phenomenex Luna C18 column (150 mm × 2.0 mm, 3 µm) at 40 °C using isocratic mobile phase consisting of 0.2% formic acid-methanol (13 : 87, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. The tandem mass detection was constructed on a triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source operating in positive-ion mode. The selected reaction monitoring of transitions was m/z 456.2 → 354.2 for lacidipine and m/z 389.2 → 315.0 for IS, respectively. Then, the established method was applied in a bioequivalence study comparing lacidipine dispersible tablet with commercial tablet in 20 healthy Chinese subjects.

The calibration curve exhibited great linearity in the range of 0.10 - 10.00 ng/mL (r2 = 0.999). The intraday and interday precision and accuracy met the acceptance criteria, and no matrix effect was found. In addition, the 90% confidence intervals for the test/reference ratio of Cmax, AUC0-24, and AUC0-∞ fell within the bioequivalence acceptance criteria (80 - 125%).

The method is suitable for quantification of lacidipine in human plasma. Moreover, the two preparations are bioequivalent.
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