LC/MS/MS High Sensitivity Bioanalytical Method: Atorvastatin Calcium in Human Plasma

Atorvastatin Calcium is under a drug class known as statins, widely used for the treatment of severe hypercholesterolemia by lowering blood cholesterol and prevention of events related to cardiovascular disease. It works through inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase found in liver tissue which plays a part in production of cholesterol in the body. Bioanalyses of atorvastatin in human plasma have been reported in pharmacokinetics and bioequivalence studies, which are carried out mostly on LC/MS/MS with liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) or solid phase extraction (SPE) method for high sensitivity and selectivity. The reliability of a bioassay depends on the performance of LC/MS/MS system employed and the method of sample pre-treatment. With rapid progress of interface and triple quadrupole MS techniques, simpler sample pre-treatment without SPE may be adopted to achieve not only reliable quantitative results, but also higher throughput and lower running cost. In this Application News, a simple, fast and highly sensitive method for quantitative determination of atorvastatin in human plasma is described. The LC/MS/MS used is LCMS-8060 with a heated ESI, coupled with UHPLC Nexera X2. The high sensitivity and robust interface design of the system allow the use of protein-precipitation only in plasma pre-treatment and achieve a LLOQ of 40 pg/mL.