Development and validation of a highly sensitive LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous quantitation of nortriptyline and 10-hydroxynortriptyline in human plasma: application to a human pharmacokinetic study.

A highly sensitive and specific LC-MS/MS method has been developed for simultaneous estimation of nortriptyline (NTP) and 10-hydroxynortriptyline (OH-NTP) in human plasma (250 µL) using carbamazepine as an internal standard (IS). LC-MS/MS was operated under the multiple reaction-monitoring mode using the electrospray ionization technique. A simple liquid-liquid extraction process was used to extract NTP, OH-NTP and IS from human plasma. The total run time was 2.5 min and the elution of NTP, OH-NTP and IS occurred at 1.44, 1.28 and 1.39 min, respectively; this was achieved with a mobile phase consisting of 20 mm ammonium acetate : acetonitrile (20:80, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.50 mL/min on a HyPURITY C(18) column. The developed method was validated in human plasma with a lower limit of quantitation of 1.09 ng/mL for both NTP and OH-NTP. A linear response function was established for the range of concentrations 1.09-30.0 ng/mL (r > 0.998) for both NTP and OH-NTP. The intra- and inter-day precision values for NTP and OH-NTP met the acceptance as per FDA guidelines. NTP and OH-NTP were stable in a battery of stability studies, i.e. bench-top, auto-sampler and freeze-thaw cycles. The developed assay was applied to a pharmacokinetic study in humans.