A simple and rapid high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method for the determination of propafenone (PPF) and its active metabolite 5-hydroxypropafenone (5-OHP) in human plasma was developed and validated. This new method was linear and allowed simultaneous quantification of PPF and 5-OHP at a lower level of 0.5 ng/mL. The aliquot of 200 μL plasma sample was simply treated with 4-fold methanol to deproteinize the plasma. The chromatographic separation was achieved on a Hedera ODS-2C18 analytical column with the mobile phase of methanol and 5 mM ammonium acetate solution containing 0.2% formic acid (pH 3.2) (68:32, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. Quantitation of the analytes was achieved by multiple reaction monitoring under positive ionization mode. The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of PPF and 5-OHP in healthy Chinese volunteers. After oral administration of a single dose of 425 mg PPF hydrochloride sustained-release capsule, the maximum peak plasma concentration (Cmax) of PPF was 210.9 ± 141.9 ng/mL with a Tmax of 6 ± 1 h, the Cmax of 5-OHP was 129.6 ± 65.4 ng/mL with a Tmax of 7 ± 2 h. The area under plasma concentration-time curve (AUC0-36) of PPF was 1610 ± 1309 ng·h/mL with a t1/2 of 4.6 ± 1.1 h, the AUC0-36 of 5-OHP was 1446 ± 754 ng·h/mL with a t1/2 of 7.6 ± 1.6 h.
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