Comparison of liquid chromatography-ultraviolet and chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of indapamide in human whole blood and their applications in bioequivalence studies

Abstract The aim of this study was to compare two methods which were based on liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection (LC-UV) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), respectively, to determine indapamide (CAS 26807-65-8) and to apply them to bioequivalence studies. The universal parameters, including selectivity, linearity, precision, and quantification limit, served as gold standard for the comparison of the two methods. As a result, the two methods were both very consistent and reliable. Furthermore, the LC-MS/MS method required only one-fifth the blood volume needed by the other method and was approximately 25 times more sensitive than the other method. The total run time of the LC-MS/MS method was 3.5 min per sample as opposed to 11 min for the other method. Forty healthy male Chinese volunteers were selected as subjects. One half were orally administrered 2.5 mg indapamide immediate release tablets while the other half were orally administered 1.5 mg indapamide sustained release coated tablets. The collected blood samples were determined with the two methods described above. The pharmacokinetic parameters were determined using a noncompartmental method. For the bioequivalence studies, the pharmacokinetic parameters acquired here were in line with the literature and parameters met the criteria set by the State Food and Drug Administration of China (SFDA) for bioequivalence study, indicating that generic drugs are bioequivalent to branded drugs. The present study suggests that the two methods based on LC-UV and LC-MS/MS were suitable for bioavailability studies of indapamide with different pharmaceutical formulations. Consequently, it can be believed that the criterion that each individual expected concentration range would need a given bioassay with the requested sensitivity is not absolutely right. In practice, most of the time, the highest sensitivity allows to bioassay concentrations in a higher range.