Simultaneous Determination of 8 Retinoid Drugs in Manifold Matrixes of Anti-acne Cosmetics by LC-MS/MS

OBJECTIVE  To establish an LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of 8 retinoid drugs including tacalcitol, tazarotene, acitretin, isotretinoin, tretinoin, etretinate, viaminate, adapalene in manifold matrixes of anti-acne cosmetics.

METHODS  The sample was dispersed with 1 mL saturated sodium chloride solution and then added methol solvent for ultrasonic extraction. The separation and analysis was performed on an ACQUITY UPLC^® BEH C₁₈ column((2.1 mm×100 mm, 1.7 μm). The mobile phase consisted of methanol containing 0.1% formic acid-5 mmol·L⁻¹ ammonium acetate aqueous solution(adjust pH to 4.0 with acetic acid) by gradient elution. Electro-spray ionization was applied and operated in the positive mode and negative mode(ESI⁺/ESI^–). Schedule multiple reaction monitoring(sMRM) mode was used to monitor ions. Matrix-matched calibration was used to quantitative calculation.

RESULTS  Eight retinoid drugs showed good linear relationship in their ranges, the linear correlation coefficients of the method were >0.996. At three different levels of addition, the average recoveries ranged from 75% to 120%, with the RSD(n=6) not more than 10%. The method detected concentration were 0.02 mg·kg⁻¹ except for 0.4 mg·kg⁻¹ of tacalcitol.

CONCLUSION  The method is simple, selective, sensitive, accurate and rapid with short analysis time, and can be used for the determination of 8 retinoid drugs in anti-acne cosmetics.