A sensitive liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry method for the intracellular and plasma quantification of raltegravir after solid-phase extraction

Introduction  Liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry for the quantification of raltegravir in human plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells has been developed. Methods  Sample preparations were based on a fully automated solid-phase extraction process. Mass spectrometric data were acquired in a single-ion monitoring method. Raltegravir and quinoxaline, the internal standard, were well separated in a gradient mode over 15 min. Key findings  Validation study exhibited excellent linearity, with good intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy. Conclusions  The assay was successfully applied to the raltegravir quantification in HIV-infected patients.