Determination of esomeprazole and its two main metabolites in human, rat and dog plasma by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry.

A LC-MS/MS method was developed for quantitative determination of esomeprazole, and its two main metabolites 5-hydroxyesomeprazole and omeprazole sulphone in 25 microL human, rat or dog plasma. The analytes and their internal standards were extracted from plasma into methyl tert-butyl ether - dichloromethane (3:2, v/v). After evaporation and reconstitution of the organic extract the analytes were separated on a reversed-phase LC column and measured by atmospheric-pressure positive ionisation MS. The linearity range was 20-20,000 nmol/L for esomeprazole and omeprazole sulphone, and 20-4000 nmol/L for 5-hydroxyesomeprazole. The extraction recoveries ranged between 80 and 105%. The intra- and inter-day imprecision were less than 9.5% with accuracy between 97.7% and 100.1% for all analytes.