Determination of antimigraine compounds rizatriptan, zolmitriptan, naratriptan and sumatriptan in human serum by liquid chromatography/electrospray tandem mass spectrometry.

Development of a rapid, sensitive and selective method for the determination of antimigraine drugs from human serum is essential for understanding the pharmacokinetics of these drugs when administered concurrently. Solid phase extraction (SPE) using Oasis HLB was used to extract the drugs (sumatriptan, naratriptan, zolmitriptan and rizatriptan) and the internal standard bufotenine from serum. A method based on liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) was developed and validated to simultaneously quantitate these antimigraine drugs from human serum. The precursor and major product ions of the analytes were monitored on a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with positive ion electrospray ionization (ESI) in the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The base peak in all the analytes is formed by alpha cleavage associated with protonation of the secondary amine. Mechanisms for the formation of the collision-induced dissociation products of these antimigraine compounds are proposed. Linear calibration curves were generated from 1-100 ng/mL with all coefficients of determination greater than 0.99. The inter- and intraday precision (%RSD) were less than 9.3% and accuracy (%error) was less than 9.8% for all components. The limits of detection (LOD) for the method were 250 pg/mL for sumatriptan and 100 pg/mL for the remaining analytes based on a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.