A rapid, selective and accurate high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry assay for the quantification of sanfetrinem in human plasma has been developed and validated. The performance of manual and automated sample preparation was assessed; 50 microl of plasma sample was deproteinized with acetonitrile, followed by dilution with water and injection onto the LC system. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a Phenomenex Luna C18(2), 50x2.0 (5 microm) column with a mobile phase consisting of water-acetonitrile with 0.1% formic acid followed by detection with a Perkin-Elmer API3000 mass spectrometer in multiple reaction monitoring mode. The lower limit of quantification was improved by five times compared to the UV method previously reported. A range of concentration from 10 ng/ml to 5 microg/ml was covered. The method was applied to the quantification of sanfetrinem in human plasma samples from healthy volunteers participating in a clinical study.