Determination of ritodrine in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

A simple and sensitive HPLC/MS/MS method was developed and evaluated to determine the concentration of ritodrine (RTD) in human plasma. Liquid–liquid extraction with ethyl acetate was employed as the sample preparation method. The structural analogue salbutamol was selected as the internal standard (IS). The liquid chromatography was performed on a Hanbon Sci. & Tech. Lichrospher CN (150 mm × 4.6 mm, i.d., 5 μm) column (Hanbon, China) at 20 °C. A mixture of 0.03% acetic acid and methanol (50:50, v/v) was used as isocratic mobile phase to give the retention time 3.60 min for ritodrine and 2.94 min for salbutamol. Selected reaction monitoring (SRM) in positive ionization mode was employed for mass detection. The calibration functions were linear over the concentration range 0.39–100 ng mL−1. The intra- and inter-day precision of the method were less than 15%. The lower limit of quantification was 0.39 ng mL−1. The method had been found to be suitable for application to a pharmacokinetic study after oral administration of 20 mg ritodrine hydrochloride tablet to 18 healthy female volunteers. The half-life is 2.54 ± 0.67 h.