Rapid determination of tamsulosin in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography using extraction with butyl acetate

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method with fluorescence detection for the determination of tamsulosin in human plasma is reported. The sample preparation involved liquid–liquid extraction of tamsulosin from alkalised plasma with butyl acetate and back-extraction of the drug to the phosphate buffer (pH 2). Butyl acetate is preferable to more commonly used ethyl acetate because of its much lower solubility in water. Liquid chromatography was performed on an octadecylsilica column (55 mm × 4 mm, 3 μm particles), the mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile–30 mM dihydrogenpotassium phosphate (25:75 v/v). The run time was 3.5 min. The fluorimetric detector was operated at 228/326 nm (excitation/emission wavelength). An analogue of tamsulosin, (R)-5-[2-[(3-(2-ethoxyphenoxy)propyl)amino]-2-methylethyl]-2-methoxybenzensulfonamide was used as the internal standard. The limit of quantitation was 0.4 ng/ml using 1 ml of plasma. Within-day and between-day precision expressed by relative standard deviation was less than 10% and inaccuracy did not exceed 5%. The assay was applied to the analysis of samples from several pharmacokinetic studies.