Development and validation of a hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the quantification of regadenoson in human plasma and its pharmacokinetic application

Regadenoson, the first selective adenosine A_2A receptor agonist, is used to perform exercise stress test during radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging. To detect the concentration of regadenoson in human plasma, a simple, fast, and sensitive tandem mass spectrometry method was established herein. Acetonitrile was used as a protein precipitation agent. Chromatographic separation was completed in 6.5 min using a BEH HILIC column (50 × 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm). The mobile phase consisted of 10 mmol/L ammonium acetate/acetonitrile (gradient elution). To quantify regadenoson and regadenoson-d3, an API 4000 mass spectrometry in multiple reaction monitoring mode with transitions of 391.3→259.2 and 394.3→262.2, respectively, was utilized. The calibration curve was linear in the range of 0.100–50.0 μg/L, and the intrabatch and interbatch precisions were <9.7% and <13.0%, respectively, and the accuracy was 2.0–6.9%. There was no apparent matrix effect for regadenoson or regadenoson-d3. The developed method was used to study the pharmacokinetic characteristics of regadenoson in healthy Chinese subjects.