Development and comparison of high-performance liquid chromatographic methods with tandem mass spectrometric and ultraviolet absorbance detection for the determination of cyclobenzaprine in human plasma and urine.

Sensitive assays for the determination of cyclobenzaprine (I) in human plasma and urine were developed utilizing high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with tandem mass spectrometric (MS-MS) and ultraviolet (UV) absorbance detections. These two analytical techniques were evaluated for reliability and sensitivity, and applied to support pharmacokinetic studies. Both methods employed a liquid-liquid extraction of the compound from basified biological sample. The organic extract was evaporated to dryness, the residue was reconstituted in the mobile phase and injected onto the HPLC system. The HPLC assay with MS-MS detection was performed on a PE Sciex API III tandem mass spectrometer using the heated nebulizer interface. Multiple reaction monitoring using the parent-->daughter ion combinations of m/z 276 --> 215 and 296 --> 208 was used to quantitate I an internal standard (II), respectively. The HPLC-MS-MS and HPLC-UV assays were validated in human plasma in the concentration range 0.1-50 ng/ml and 0.5-50 ng/ml, respectively. In urine, both methods were validated in the concentration range 10-1000 ng/ml. The precision of the assays, as expressed as coefficients of variation (C.V.) was less than 10% over the entire concentration range, with adequate assay specificity and accuracy. In addition to better sensitivity, the HPLC-MS-MS assay was more efficient and allowed analysis of more biological fluid samples in a single working day than the HPLC-UV method.