A sensitive method for the determination of tranexamic acid in human serum by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometer

Abstract

Tranexamic acid (TA) is a synthetic lysine analog used for the management of bleeding disorders. In this study, we developed and validated a method for the determination of TA in human serum by liquid chromatography with Q-trap mass spectrometer. Serum sample (100 μL) was deproteinated with perchloric acid, and after pH adjustment, chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 column and isocratically eluted using a mobile phase consisting of ammonium acetate buffer (pH 3.8) /acetonitrile (95:5, v/v) at a flow rate of 200 μL /min. The total run time was 5 minutes. Detection and quantitation were performed with the mass spectrometer using multiple reaction monitoring mode with the ion transition m/z 158.1 to m/z 95.1 for TA and m/z 144.0 to m/z 81.1 for the internal standard (cis-4-aminocyclohexanecarboxylic acid). The results were linear over the concentration range of 0.1-100 μg/mL of TA, with limit of quantitation of 0.03 μg/mL. The intra-day and inter-day assay coefficient of variations for serum were less than 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively, and the recovery of added standard TA was 92.5 to 99.3%. In conclusion; a simple and sensitive LC-MS/MS method has been developed for the determination of TA in human serum. The method showed excellent linearity, sensitivity, recovery and precision. This method is suitable for clinical pharmacokinetic studies.