Rapid and sensitive analysis of medroxyprogesterone acetate in human serum by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract

Medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) is one of the major drugs used in endocrine therapy for advanced or recurrent breast cancer. The present study describes an accurate and reproducible gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) method to measure MPA in serum. After being extracted by a solid-phase cartridge using an Oasis HLB copolymer, the residues were derivatized with a heptafluorobutyric anhydride and then analyzed by GC-MS. We validated the method by analyzing the serum samples spiked with pure MPA, and obtained a linear correlation (0.9977) and precision with a coefficient of variation ranging from 1.8 to 73. We found that the GC-MS method was linear over the range of 0.2 ng mL(-1) to 500 ng mL(-1) using a sample volume of 1 mL The analytical recovery was 93.7%, and the limit of detection was 0.2 ng mL(-1). The oral administration of MPA to men and its subsequent detection in serum showed that the GC-MS method described is sensitive, specific, and suitable for the determination of MPA by bench-top GC-MS.