Comparative pharmacokinetics of trandolapril, its active metabolite, and verapamil in human plasma of Egyptian population using HPLC-MS/MS

Trandolapril and verapamil are commonly used antihypertensive drugs. However, there is a lack of available data on the change of their pharmacokinetics in patients with liver or kidney impairment and hence the need for dose adjustment. In this article, a high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the monitoring of trandolapril, its active metabolite trandolaprilat, and verapamil in human plasma of patients with renal impairment and/or liver insufficiency. The chromatographic separation was achieved on a Gemini C-18 reversed phase column using a gradient elution mode with a run time of 10 minutes. The mobile phase consisted of a mixture of methanol and 2% acetic acid. The electrospray ionization MS/MS analysis was performed in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The assay was validated as per Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for bioanalytical method validation and proved to be suitable for the determination of therapeutic drug levels in plasma. The inter-group changes in pharmacokinetic data were compared to that of healthy volunteers. The comparison showed a significant difference in the pharmacokinetic parameters between the studied groups. The presented results exhibit the benefits of the proposed assay as a validated analytical tool for the continuous drug monitoring.