A rapid and sensitive ultra‐high‐performance liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous determination of atorvastatin calcium and lisinopril in rat plasma and its application in a pharmacokinetic study

Abstract Atorvastatin calcium and lisinopril are commonly used to reduce cholesterol and control blood pressure in the clinic. In this study, a sensitive and rapid method was developed and validated for the simultaneous detection of plasma concentrations of atorvastatin calcium and lisinopril using an ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry with an ACQUITY UPLC BEH C 18 column. The mobile phase of methanol and 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution was pumped at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. The retention times of atorvastatin calcium and lisinopril were 2.48 min and 1.99 min, respectively. The linear range of atorvastatin calcium in plasma samples was 1–2000 ng/mL, while that of lisinopril was 5–2000 ng/mL. The absolute values of intraday and inter‐day precision and accuracy were all below 15%. Furthermore, the recovery and matrix effects of atorvastatin calcium, lisinopril, and nimodipine were 80%–120% and 85%‐115%, respectively. Therefore, the developed method can be applied for the simultaneous quantification of atorvastatin calcium and lisinopril in rat plasma. The C max were about 199 ng/mL and 2059 ng/mL for atorvastatin calcium and lisinopril, respectively. In addition, the T 1/2 of atorvastatin calcium and lisinopril were 0.6 ± 0.3 and 5.4 ± 1.7 h, respectively.