Rapid and sensitive method for quantification of gestodene in human plasma as the oxime derivative by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and its application to bioequivalence study.

A rapid and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method has been developed and validated for the estimation of gestodene in human plasma. Gestodene was extracted from human plasma by using solid-phase extraction technique. Gestodene D6 was used as the internal standard. An Acquity HSS-T3 column provided chromatographic separation of analytes followed by detection with mass spectrometry. The mass transition ion-pair was followed as m/z 326.2→124.1 for gestodene and m/z 332.3→129.1 for gestodene D6. The method involves a solid phase extraction from plasma, rapid derivatization with hydroxylamine to form oxime, simple gradient chromatographic conditions and mass spectrometric detection that enables detection at sub-picogram levels. The proposed method has been validated for a linear range of 50-11957pg/ml with a correlation coefficient≥0.9994. The intra-run and inter-run precision and accuracy were within 10%. The overall recoveries for gestodene and gestodene D6 were 62.02% and 67.57% respectively. The total run time was 4.0min. The developed method was applied for the determination of the pharmacokinetic parameters of gestodene following a single oral administration of a 2×0.06mg gestodene tablets in 10 healthy female volunteers.