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Background: Sufentanil, an opioid analgesic, is used as an induction agent for general anesthesia during surgery. Sufentanil is more active than other anesthetics and has a narrow therapeutic range. Therefore, a precise dosage regimen is necessary when administering sufentanil.Objective: This study aimed to develop a bioanalytical method for the determination of sufentanil within the sensitive concentration range more than that in a previous study utilizing protein precipitation (PP) and determine the plasma concentration of sufentanil.Methods: A method for quantitating sufentanil was developed using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) and detection by electrospray ionization (ESI). The internal standard was sufentanil-d5. Chromatographic separation was performed using an Acquity UPLC HSS T3 column (50x 2.1 mm, 1.8 μm) from Waters (Milford, MA, USA). Protein precipitation (PP) was used for sample preparation, and gradient elution was conducted using a mobile phase consisting of 1 mL of 2M ammonium acetate in 99% formic acid in 1 L of water or in 1 L of acetonitrile. The total run time for the analysis was 5 min, and the flow rate was 0.4 mL/min.Results: Standard curves were linear over ranges of 0.025-30 ng/mL for sufentanil with a correlation coefficient (r2) greater than 0.9998. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) was 0.025 ng/mL. The intra- and inter-day accuracies were 97.66%-108.8% and 101.25%-103.17%, respectively, and the precision did not exceed 15% for sufentanil.Conclusion: This study developed a validated, simple, sensitive, and convenient UPLC-MS/MS method for quantifying sufentanil in human plasma. This method was applied to determine sufentanil concentration in the plasma of patients undergoing surgery. The bioanalytical method using PP showed a sufficiently sensitive concentration range. This method could be applied to various pharmacokinetic studies of sufentanil.