Rapid characterization of urinary metabolites of pibutidine hydrochloride in humans by liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

The metabolic products of pibutidine hydrochloride, a new H-2-receptor antagonist, in human urine after oral administration of 40 mg/man were characterized by high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem-mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) with electrospray ionization (EST). Two-stage collision-induced dissociation (CID) experiments, with in-source CID by increasing the octapole offset voltage and collision-cell CID, were performed in order to develop a very rapid screening procedure that enhanced selectivity toward pibutidine-related compounds. It was possible to detect metabolites of pibutidine directly from a crude biological matrix without prior extraction, enabling confirmation of the identity of eight metabolites in urine. In addition, the linear range in ESI for pibutidine-related compounds was studied to determine the urinary excretion of pibutidine and its metabolites in humans. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.