The sensitive determination of abanoquil in blood by high-performance liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure ionization mass spectrometry

A method is described for the determination of abanoquil in human blood. The method is based on high‐performance liquid chromatography(HPLC)/atmospheric pressure positive ion chemical ionization mass spectrom‐etry, using (2H3)abanoquil as internal standard. Multiple reaction monitoring is employed for selectivity and sensitivity, which enables quantification over the range 10–500 pg ml−1 with acceptable precision and accuracy. This assay methodology illustrates the versatility of atmospheric pressure ionization/tandem mass spectrometry, in conjunction with HPLC, for the separation and quantification of drugs in the subnanogram per millilitre range.