Validation of a Selective Method for Simultaneous Determination of Doxifluridine and 5-Fluorouracil in Dog Plasma by LC-MS/MS

A simple, sensitive and selective liquid chromatographic/tandem mass spectrometric method (LC-MS/MS) was developed and validated for doxifluridine and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) quantification in dog heparinized plasma. Sample preparation was based on liquid-liquid extraction using a mixture of isopropanol/ethyl acetate (1/9 v/v) to extract doxifluridine, 5-FU and 5-chlorouracil (5-CU, an internal standard) from plasma. Chromatography was performed on a C-18 analytical column and the retention times were 2.7, 1.5 and 1.7 min for doxifluridine, 5-FU and 5-CU, respectively with shorter analysis time within 5 min than previously reported methods. The ionization was optimized using ESI negative mode and selectivity was achieved by tandem mass spectrometric analysis by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) using the transformations of m/z 244.8>107.6, 129.0>42.0 and 144.9>42.1 for doxifluridine, 5-FU and 5-CU, respectively. The achieved low limit of quantification was 20.0 ng/mL and the assay exhibited linear range of 20-2000 ng/mL ($R^2>0.99957$ for doxifluridine and $R^2>0.99857$ for 5-FU), using $100{\mu}L$ of plasma. Accuracy and precision of quality control samples for both doxifluridine and 5-FU met KFDA and FDA Guidance criteria of 15% for accuracy with coefficients of variation less than 15%. This method demonstrated adequate sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, precision and stability to support the simultaneous analysis of doxifluridine and 5-FU in dog plasma samples in pharmacokinetic and bioequivalence studies.

LC/MS/MS를 이용한 비글견의 혈장 중 Doxifluridine 및 5-Fluorouracil의 동시 분석법 Validation