Pharmacokinetic and absolute bioavailability study of total panax notoginsenoside, a typical multiple constituent traditional chinese medicine (TCM) in rats.

LC/ESI/MS method was employed for the pharmacokinetic evaluation of total panax notoginsenoside (TPNS) in rats. After oral or intravenous administration of TPNS at the dosage of 300.0 or 10.0 mg kg(-1) to rats respectively, panax notoginsenoside R1, ginsenoside Rg1, Rd, Re and Rb1 were simultaneous determined in rat plasma. Pharmacokinetic parameters and absolute bioavailability of panax notoginsenoside R1, ginsenoside Rg1, Rd, Re and Rb1 were obtained by the Drug And Statistics for windows (DAS) pharmacokinetic software. The pharmacokinetic parameters of all analytes were different form each other. T(1/2) were changed from 0.72 to 22.16 h and AUC were changed from 1.03 to 98.94 mg/l.h after oral or intravenous administration TPNS or Xuesaitong (TPNS) injection. The absolute bioavailability of R1, Rg1, Rd, Re and Rb1 were of 9.29%, 6.06%, 2.36%, 7.06% and 1.18%, respectively.