Development of a liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry assay for the quantification of rabeprazole in human plasma

A simple and sensitive liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry method, employing electrospray ionization, has been developed and validated to quantify rabeprazole in human plasma using omeprazole as the internal standard. The method was validated to demonstrate the specificity, lower limit of quantification, accuracy, and precision of measurements. Selected reaction monitoring was specific for rabeprazole and omeprazole (the internal standard, IS); no endogenous materials interfered with the analysis of rabeprazole and IS from blank plasma. The assay was linear over the concentration range 0.2-200 ng/mL using a 2 microL aliquot of plasma. The correlation coefficients for the calibration curves ranged from 0.9988-0.9994. The intra- and inter-day precision, calculated from quality control samples, were less than 6.65%. A mixture of methanol and water (50:50) was used as the isocratic mobile phase, with 0.1% of formic acid in water, that did not affect the stability of rabeprazole or IS. A simple sample preparation method of protein precipitation with methanol was chosen. The method was employed in a pharmacokinetic study after oral administration of 20 mg rabeprazole to 24 healthy volunteers.