Determination of artemisinin in rat plasma with HPLC-mS and its application / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop a method for determining artemisinin in rat plasma in vivo.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>HPLC-MS was adopted. Estazolam was selected as an internal standard (I.S.). The sample and I.S. were extracted using methyl tertbutyl ether and measured at m/z of 305 and 296, respectively.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>Within the linear range of 5-500 microg x L(-1), the ratio of artemisinin's peak area and I.S. peak area and the concentration showed good linearity, thus the minimum concentration was set to be 5 mictrog x L(-1).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The methodology proved that the method is so suitable for determining the drug concentration in rat blood that it can be used for studying pharmacokinetics in animals.</p>