Rapid and sensitive determination of sertraline in human plasma using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

A method for the determination of sertraline in human plasma using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), with the selected ion-monitoring (SIM) mode, was described. The following was used in this study: (1) single liquid–liquid extraction at alkaline pH after deproteinization of plasma protein and (2) perfluoroacylation with HFBA, which has higher sensitivity (about 10-fold) compared with previous reported derivatization. The detection limit for the SIM of sertraline as an N-HFB derivative was 0.1 ng/ml, and its recovery was 80–85%. The linear response was obtained in the range of 0.2–10.0 ng/ml with a correlation coefficient of 0.999. The coefficient of variation (C.V.%) was less than 12.1% in the 1–30 ng/ml, and less than 18.2% at 0.2 ng/ml, and the accuracy was less than 10% at all of the concentration range. These findings indicate that this assay method has adequate precision and accuracy to determine the amount of sertraline in human plasma. After pharmacokinetics was performed with this assay method following oral administration of sertraline hydrochloride in man, moment analysis revealed that pharmacokinetic parameters for sertraline (Cmax, 10.3 ng/ml; Tmax, 8.0 h; T1/2, 28.6 h) were similar to previously reported results. These results indicate that this simple and sensitive assay method is readily applicable to the pharmacokinetic studies of sertraline.