Simultaneous Determination of 5 Anesthetics in Human Plasma by UHPLC-MS/MS

OBJECTIVE To establish UHPLC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of the concentrations of remifentanil, sufentanil, etomidate, dexmedetomidine, dezocine in human plasma to provide reference for clinical drug use. METHODS The plasma samples were precipitated by acetonitrile, procaine was used as internal standard, and separated on Agilent Poroshell 120 EC-C₁₈(2.1 mm×150 mm, 2.7 μm) with the mobile phase of methanol and 10 mmol·L^-1 ammonium formate solution(pH was adjusted to 3.5 with formic acid)(28:72) at a flow rate of 0.2 mL·min^-1. Multiple reaction monitoring was conducted in ion detection mode using positive electrospray ionization source. RESULTS The linear calibration curves of remifentanil, sufentanil, etomidate, dexmedetomidine and dezocine were obtained in the concentration range of 0.25-25.32(r=0.998 7), 0.27-27.48(r=0.999 2), 1.54-154.05(r=0.999 5), 0.51-51.35(r=0.999 2), 0.56-56.19(r=0.998 8)ng·mL^-1, respectively. The intra- and inter-day precision RSD was <10.0% and the absolute recovery was between 92.8% and 107.3%. This method was successfully applied to analyze the drugs in human plasma from thirty clinical samples. CONCLUSION The method is rapid, accurate, sensitive and reliable for determination of the concentrations of remifentanil, sufentanil, etomidate, dexmedetomidine, dezocine in human plasma, and proves to be suitable for clinical therapeutic drug monitoring.