Matrix effect-free on-line pass-through cleanup procedure for the fast determination of local anesthetic drug by LC-MS/MS

Abstract

A novel nano-titania modified covalent organic frameworks (NTM-COFs) has been synthesized and characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron micrographs (SEM). Besides, NTM-COFs, as efficient sorbent, has also been evaluated in the on-line pass-through cleanup procedure prior to the analysis of local anesthetic drugs (lidocaine, bupivacaine and tetracaine) in human plasma by liquid chromatography-tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Under optimum conditions, the level of matrix effects can be dramatically reduced by the NTM-COFs based on-line pass-through cleanup procedure, with acceptable recoveries ranging from 88.8% to 103%. Satisfactory trueness and precision of the proposed method were also obtained, with the within- and between-run RSDs less than 7.0% and relative error (REs) less than 12%. The limits of detections (LODs) of lidocaine, bupivacaine and tetracaine were 0.029 μg·L−1, 0.027 μg·L−1 and 0.016 μg·L−1, respectively. The analytical method has been successfully applied for the determination of the plasma concentrations of bupivacaine in five parturients who received an epidural administration of bupivacaine hydrochloride during vaginal delivery. Results demonstrate the applicability of the developed NTM-COFs on-line pass-through cleanup procedure coupled with LC-MS/MS method to clinical studies.