Determination the concentration of artemisinin in healthy human plasma and study on its pharmacokinetics by LC-MS-MS

Objective To establish a rapid and sensitive LC-MS-MS method for the analysis of artemisinin in the plasma and study the pharmacokinetics of artemisinin tablets in healthy volunteers.Methods Ten healthy male volunteers were received oral single dose artemisinin tablets(1 000 mg).The plasma samples were determined by L-MS-MS method.Results The limits of quantitation of method for artemisinin was 4 μg·L-1,the calibration curves in plasma was linear in the range of 4 to 1 000 μg·L-1.The pharmacokinetic parameters were as follows : Cmax was(466.50±120.15) μg·L-1;AUC0-24h was(2.78±0.85) mg·h·L-1;AUC0–∞ was(2.82±0.87) mg·h·L-1;t1/2 was(3.58±0.86) h;tmax was(2.15±0.91) h.Conclusion The method is shown to be accurate and convenient,and suitable for pharmacokinetic study of artemisinin.