A HIGHLY SENSITIVE METHOD TO QUANTIFY TRIAZOLAM AND ITS METABOLITES WITH LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS-SPECTROMETRY

We established a highly sensitive method to determine triazolam and it s major metabolites, alpha-hydroxytriazolam and 4-hydroxytriazolam, in human plasma and urine with a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry system which incorporates an atmospheric chemical ionization interfac e. A plasma sample and a urine sample after solvent extraction were in jected into an ODS column of reversed phase with a mobile phase in a l inear solvent gradient of initially 50 mM ammonium acetate (pH 4.0) 50 %:methanol 50% and 15 min later methanol 100%; quantification limits o f as low as 20 pg/mL at an SNR of 3 were obtained for each compound. W ith diazepam as an internal standard, recovery yields of 84, 81, and 7 7% were obtained for triazolam, alpha-hydroxytriazolam and 4-hydroxytr iazolam, respectively,