A simple, rapid and sensitive liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method for the determination of dienogest in human plasma and its pharmacokinetic applications under fasting

A simple, rapid and sensitive analytical method using liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS) detection with positive ion electrospray ionization was developed for the determination of dienogest in human K 2 EDTA plasma using levonorgestrel d 6 as an internal standard (IS). Dienogest and IS were extracted from human plasma using simple liquid–liquid extraction. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a Zorbax XDB‐Phenyl column (4.6 × 75 mm, 3.5 µm) under isocratic conditions using acetonitrile–5 m m ammonium acetate (70:30, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.60 mL/min. The protonated precursor to product ion transitions monitored for dienogest and IS were at m / z 312.30 → 135.30 and 319.00 → 251.30, respectively. The method was validated with a linearity range of 1.003–200.896 ng/mL having a total analysis time for each chromatograph of 3.0 min. The method has shown tremendous reproducibility with intra‐ and inter‐day precision (coefficient of variation) <3.97 and 6.10%, respectively, and accuracy within ±4.0% of nominal values. The validated method was applied to a pharmacokinetic study in human plasma samples generated after administration of a single oral dose of 2.0 mg dienogest tablets to healthy female volunteers and was proved to be highly reliable for the analysis of clinical samples. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.