LC-MS/MS Method for the Quantitation of Cefotetan in Human Plasma and Its Application to Pharmacokinetic Study

A rapid and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry（LC-MS/MS） method for the de- termination of cefotetan in human plasma was developed and validated. After the protein precipitation of sample with acetonitrile, the analyte and internal standard（IS）, tramadol, were separated on a Zorbax XDB C8 column using ace- tonitrile/1%（volume fraction） formic acid（volume ratio 35：65, pH=2.5） as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min with a 1 ： 1 split. The detection was performed by electrospray ionization with positive ion mode, followed by multiple reaction monitoring of the transitions for cefotetan at m/z 576.3→460.2（quantifier） and m/z 576.3→432.2（qualifier） and for IS at m/z 264.1→58.1. Cefotetan and IS were eluted at 1.86 and 1.87 rain, respectively. The assay was linear over the concentration range of 0.1-100 gg/mL for 20 μL of human plasma only with intra- and inter-day preci- sions（expressed as the relative standard deviation） of less than 6.62% and accuracies（as relative error） of ＋1.31%. The method was applied to the pharmacokinetic study of a l-h intravenous infusion of 1.0 g of cefotetan disodium for human volunteers（n=6）.