A rapid and sensitive method for the quantification of ganciclovirin plasma using liquid chromatography/selected reaction monitoring/mass spectrometry

A method using reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled with electrospr ay ionization and selected reaction monitoring mass spectrometry has been d eveloped for the quantitative analysis of ganciclovir in rat plasma. Acyclo vir, a structurally related analog of ganciclovir, was used as the internal standard. A small volume of plasma (50 mu L) was spiked with the internal standard and plasma proteins were precipitated by methanol. The supernatant was dried under nitrogen, and then reconstituted in water. The use of liqu id chromatography/selected reaction monitoring/mass spectrometry effectivel y eliminated potential interference from endogenous constituents in the pla sma. This highly selective and sensitive method made it possible to analyze plasma ganciclovir with a lower limit of quantitation of 10 ng/mL. The ass ay was reproducible and linear in the range 10-10,000 ngl mt. The precision and accuracy values were in the range 2.0-6.9% and 89.0-109.6%, respective ly. The analyte recovery was greater than 88%. This method was successfully used to monitor the pharmacokinetic profile of ganciclovir in normal rats following intraperitoneal administration of the drug. Copyright (C) 2000 Jo hn Wiley Br Sons, Ltd.