Quantification of Warfarin in Dried Rat Plasma Spots by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Tandem Mass Spectrometry

This paper presents the development and validation of a novel method for quantification of the oral anticoagulant drug warfarin in dried plasma spots (DPS) by high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Blood plasma was chosen as a biological fluid to preclude the influence of the hematocrit on the results of the analysis. A 30  μ L sample of rat plasma was placed onto Whatman 903 Protein Saver Card and was allowed to dry. A single DPS is sufficient for preparing eight 3.2 mm discs, each containing approximately 1.5–1.6  μ L of plasma. Warfarin extraction from one 3.2 mm disc was carried out by adding 200  μ L of the acetonitrile : water mixture (1 : 1, v/v) containing 10 mM NH 4 COOH (pH 4.0), with incubation on a shaker at 1000 rpm for 1 h at 25°C. After chromatographic separation, warfarin and coumachlor (an internal standard) were measured using negative-ion multiple-reaction monitoring with ion transitions m / z 307 → 161 for warfarin and m / z 341 → 161 for the internal standard. The working range of this method is 10–10,000 ng/mL. Within this range, intra- and interday variability of precision and accuracy was <13% and recovery was 82–99%. The results indicate that the new method requires only small plasma samples and may be useful for pharmacokinetic research on warfarin.