Determination of rabeprazole and its active metabolite, rabeprazole thioether in human plasma by column-switching high-performance liquid chromatography and its application to pharmacokinetic study

A new sensitive column-switching high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method with ultraviolet detection was developed for the simultaneous determination of rabeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor, and its active metabolite, rabeprazole thioether in human plasma. Rabeprazole, its thioether metabolite and 5-methyl-2-[{4-(3-methoxypropoxy)-3-methyl pyridin-2-yl} methyl sulfinyl]-1H-benzimidazole, as an internal standard were extracted from 1 ml of plasma using diethyl ether–dichloromethane (9:1, v/v) mixture and the extract was injected into a column I (TSK-PW precolumn, 10 μm, 35 mm × 4.6 mm I.D.) for clean-up and column II (C18 Grand ODS-80TM TS analytical column, 5 μm, 250 mm × 4.6 mm I.D.) for separation. The peak was detected with an ultraviolet detector set at a wavelength of 288 nm, and the total time for chromatographic separation was ∼25 min. Mean absolute recoveries were 78.0 and 88.3% for rabeprazole and rabeprazole thioether, respectively. Intra- and inter-day coefficient variations were less than 6.5 and 4.5% for rabeprazole, 3.6 and 5.3% for rabeprazole thioether, respectively, at the different concentration ranges. The validated concentration ranges of this method were 1–1000 ng/ml for rabeprazole and 3–500 ng/ml for rabeprazole thioether. The limits of quantification were 1 ng/ml for rabeprazole and 3 ng/ml for rabeprazole thioether. The method was suitable for therapeutic drug monitoring and was applied to pharmacokinetic study in human volunteers.