Abstract: AIM: To establish a rapid and sensitive LC-MS/MS method for the analysis of rosuvastatin calcium in plasma and study the pharmacokinetics of rosuvastatin on China healthy volunteers. METHODS: Plasma samples containing rosuvastatin calcium and fluvastatin sodium were extracted with liquid-liquid extraction, followed by liquid chromatographic separation and on-line MS/MS using turboionspray ionization as an interface detection by the multi-reaction monitoring. RESULTS: The limit of quantitation of method for rosuvastatin calcium was 0.03 ng/mL, the calibration curves in plasma were linear over the range of 0.03 to 60 ng/mL and within-batch and between-batch variation over the range were less than 10%. CONCLUSION: The method is shown to be accurate and convenient, and suitable for pharmacokinetic studies of rosuvastatin calcium.

Key words: rosuvastatin calcium, liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, pharmacokinetics, plasma concentration