Journal of Chromatography B, 813 (2004) 7580

Simultaneous determination of ebastine and its three metabolites in

plasma using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry
Wonku Kang, Kwang-Hyeon Liu, Ji-Young Ryu, Jae-Gook Shin
Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics Research Center, Inje University College of Medicine, Busan, South Korea
Received 8 June 2004; accepted 14 September 2004
Available online 19 October 2004

Abstract
We developed a method for determining ebastine, a new generation of antihistamines, and its three metabolites (hydroxyebastine, carebastine and desalkylebastine) in plasma simultaneously using LC/MS/MS. Four compounds and terfenadine, an internal standard, were
extracted from plasma using a mixture of diethylether and dichloromethane in the presence of 1 M HCl. After drying the organic layer,
the residue was reconstituted in mobile phase (acetonitrile:5 mM ammonium acetate, 50:50, v/v) and injected onto a reversed-phase C18
column. The isocratic mobile phase was eluted at 0.2 ml/min. The ion transitions monitored in multiple reaction-monitoring mode were m/z
470.7 167.1, 486.7 167.1, 500.6 167.1, 268.4 167.1 and 472.7 436.0 for ebastine, hydroxyebastine, carebastine, desalkylebastine and terfenadine, respectively. The coefficient of variation of the assay precision was less than 12.5%, and the accuracy exceeded 88%.
The limit of detection was 0.5 ng/ml for desalkylebastine; 0.2 ng/ml for ebastine, hydroxyebastine and carebastine, respectively. This method
was used to measure the plasma concentration of ebastine and its three metabolites from healthy subjects after a single 20 mg oral dose of
ebastine. This analytic method is a very simple, sensitive, and accurate to determine the pharmacokinetic profiles of ebastine including its
metabolites.
2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Ebastine; Desalkylebastine; Hydroxyebastine; Carebastine; LC/MS/MS

1. Introduction
Ebastine is a new generation of antihistamines which has
potent and selective histamine H1 -receptor antagonistic effect, but negligible anticholinergic and antiserotonergic properties [1,2]. The drug is further characterized by a lack of
electrocardiologic side effects such as QT interval prolongation which has been reported in the use of terfenadine or
other antihistamines [35]. Ebastine is effective for the treatment of chronic idiopathic urticaria and allergic diseases with
once daily regimen, and the antihistaminic action is mainly
induced by the active metabolite (carebastine) rapidly generated in the small intestine and in the liver [6]. Although
the other two metabolites, desalkylebastine and hydroxye

Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 51 890 6709; fax: +82 51 893 1232.
E-mail address: [email protected] (J.-G. Shin).

1570-0232/$ see front matter 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jchromb.2004.09.017

bastine are pharmacologically inactive, they should be still

kept an eye on in pharmacokinetic point of view, because different cytochrome P450 enzymes, CYP3A4 and CYP2J2 are
involved in dealkylation and in hydroxylation of ebastine to
generate desalkylebastine and hydroxyebastine, respectively
[7,8].
To date, a couple of chromatographic methods have been
reported to quantify ebastine and its metabolites in physiological samples, no publication, however, has appeared to simultaneously measure the four compounds in human plasma
due to the limitation of detection [9]. Rohatagi et al. recently
improved the assay methodology using a tandem mass spectrometry, but they only measured ebastine and carebastine in
human plasma [10].
Therefore, we develop a sensitive and accurate method for
determining ebastine and its three metabolites at the same
time in human plasma using liquid chromatography with a

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W. Kang et al. / J. Chromatogr. B 813 (2004) 7580

tandem mass spectrometry. This method was successfully

applied to characterize the pharmacokinetics of ebastine and
its metabolites in humans.

2. Experimental
2.1. Reagents and materials
Ebastine, desalkylebastine, hydroxyebastine, and carebastine were kindly donated by Almirall Prodesfarma, SA
(Barcelona, Spain). Terfenadine (internal standard, IS) and
HPLC-grade organic solvents (dichloromethane and diethylether) were purchased from Sigma Chemical Co. (St.
Louis, MO, USA) and Merck Co. (Darmstadt, Germany), respectively. All the other chemicals and solvents were of the
highest analytical grade available.
2.2. Preparation of standards and quality controls
Ebastine, its three metabolites and IS were dissolved in
methanol at 1 mg/ml, respectively. The standard solutions
were serially diluted with methanol and added at drugfree plasma to obtain the concentrations of 0.5, 2, 5, 10,
20, 50 and 100 ng/ml for carebastine and desalkylebastine, respectively, and 0.5, 1, 2, 5 and 10 ng/ml for ebastine and hydroxyebastine, respectively. Calibration graphs
in plasma were derived from the peak area ratio of ebastine and three metabolites to IS with a linear regression,
respectively.
Quality controls were prepared daily in 1 ml of blank human plasma by adding 100 l of standard solution, respectively. They were prepared for 0.5, 5, 20 and 100 ng/ml for
carebastine and desalkylebastine, respectively, and 0.5, 2, 5
and 10 ng/ml for ebastine and hydroxyebastine, respectively,
to evaluate the inter- and intra-day precision and accuracy of
this assay method.
2.3. Characterization of the product ions using tandem
mass spectrometry
One micromolar ebastine, desalkylebastine, hydroxyebastine, carebastine and IS solutions were infused into the mass
spectrometer separately at a flow rate of 10 l/min to characterize the product ions of each compound. The precursor
ions [M + H]+ , and the pattern of fragmentation were monitored using positive ion mode. The major peaks observed
in the MS/MS scan were used to quantify ebastine, its three
metabolites and IS.
2.4. Analytical system
The concentrations of ebastine and its three metabolites in
human plasma were quantified using liquid chromatographymass spectrometry with a PE SCIEX API 3000 LC/MS/MS
System (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA)

equipped with an electrospray ionization interface used to

generate positive ions [M + H]+ . The compounds were separated on a reversed-phase column (Luna C18 , 2 mm 50 mm
internal diameter, 3 m particle size; Phenomenex, Torrance, CA, USA) with an isocratic mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 5 mM ammonium acetate buffer
(50:50%, v/v). The mobile phase was eluted using an
HP 1100 series pump (Agilent, Wilmington, DE, USA) at
0.2 ml/min.
The turboion spray interface was operated in the positive ion mode at 5500 V and 350 C. The operating conditions were optimized by flow injection of a mixture of
all anlalytes and were determined as follows: nebulizing
gas flow, 1.04 l/min; auxiliary gas flow, 4.0 l/min; curtain
gas flow, 1.44 l/min; orifice voltage, 80 V; ring voltage
400 V; collision gas (nitrogen) pressure, 3.58 105 Torr.
Quantitation was performed by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) of the protonated precursor ion and the related product ion for ebastine and its three metabolites
using the internal standard method with peak area ratios
and a weighting factor of 1/x. The mass transition used
for ebastine, hydroxyebastine, carebastine and terfenadine
were m/z 470.7 167.1, 486.7 167.1, 500.6 167.1
and 472.7 436.0, respectively (collision energy 40 eV,
dwell time 200 ms); that for desalkylebastine was m/z
268.4 167.1 (collision energy 15 eV, dwell time 200 ms).
Quadrupoles Q1 and Q3 were set on unit resolution.
The analytical data were processed by Analyst software (version 1.2, Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA,
USA).
2.5. Sample preparation
Fifty microliters of internal standard (2.5 ng/ml) and 1
ml of 1 M HCl were added to 1 ml of plasma, followed
by 1 min liquidliquid extraction with 5 ml of a mixture of
dichloromethane and diethylether (1:1). The organic layer
was separated and evaporated to dryness at ambient temperature in a Speed-Vac (Savant, Holbrook, NY, USA). The
residue was reconstituted into 100 l of mobile phase by vortex mixing for 15 s; 5 l of this solution was injected onto the
column.
2.6. Validation procedure
The validation parameters were selectivity, extraction
recovery, precision, and accuracy. Five batches of blank
heparinized human plasma were screened to determine the
specificity. The results from drug-spiked plasma extracts
were compared to blank plasma extracts with drug added after
extraction to determine the extraction recovery. The precision
and accuracy of the intra- and inter-day assay validation were
estimated using the inverse prediction of the concentration
of the quality controls from the calibration curves. For
the stability study in plasma, control drug-free plasma
samples were spiked with 5 and 20 ng/ml for carebastine

W. Kang et al. / J. Chromatogr. B 813 (2004) 7580

and desalkylebastine, respectively, and with 2 and 5 ng/ml

for ebastine and hydroxyebastine, respectively. Short-term
stability was assessed after 12 h of storage at room temperature; long-term stability was assessed after 2 weeks of
storage in a freezer at 80 C. The stability of ebastine and
three metabolites in plasma samples was tested after three
freezethaw cycles (80 C to room temperature). The
stability in extracts was also examined after 10 h of storage
at room temperature.
2.7. Clinical application
Ten healthy subjects who gave written informed consent
took part in this study. Health problems, drug or alcohol
abuse, and abnormalities in laboratory screening values were
exclusion criteria. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Busan Paik Hospital (Busan, South
Korea). After an overnight fast, all the subjects were given
a single 20 mg oral dose of ebastine. Blood samples (6 ml)
were taken before and 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 24,
48 and 72 h after drug administration and stored at 80 C
until analysis.

77

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Mass spectra
Precursor ions for ebastine, its three metabolites and terfenadine, and their corresponding product ions were determined from spectra obtained during the infusion of standard
solutions into a mass spectrometer using an electrospray ionization source, which operated in positive ionization mode
with collision nitrogen gas in Q2 of MS/MS system. Ebastine,
desalkylebastine, hydroxyebastine, carebastine and terfenadine mainly produced protonated molecules at m/z 470.7,
268.4, 486.7, 500.6 and 472.7, respectively. Their product
ions were scanned in Q3 after collision with nitrogen in Q2
at m/z 167.1 for ebastine, desalkylebastine, hydroxyebastine,
carebastine, respectively, and at m/z 436.0 for terfenadine.
These are the most sensitive product ions for quantification
(Fig. 1). Forty electron voltage of the collision energy was
optimal to produce the fragment ion of m/z 167.1 (benzhydryl
ion) from ebastine, carebastine and hydroxyebastine, respectively, and of m/z 436.0 dissociating two molecules of H2 O
from terfenadine [11], while 15 eV of collision energy should

Fig. 1. Massmass spectra of ebastine, hydroxyebastine, carebastine, desalkylebastine and terfenadine obtained using electrospray ionization mode.

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W. Kang et al. / J. Chromatogr. B 813 (2004) 7580

Fig. 2. Chromatograms of ebastine, its three metabolites and terfenadine. Left column: blank plasma; middle column: plasma spiked with 5 ng/ml of ebastine
and hydroxyebastine, respectively, and 50 ng/ml of carebastine and desalkylebastine, respectively; right column: plasma sample equivalent to 0.9, 92, 12 and
87 ng/ml for hydroxyebastine, carebastine, ebastine and desalkylebastine, respectively, from a volunteer 2 h after the oral dose of 20 mg ebastine.

be needed to detect desalkylebastine and its fragment, benzhydryl ion in the multiple reaction mode.
3.2. Determination of ebastine and its three metabolites
There were no interfering peaks at the elution times for
either analytes (desalkylebastine, 0.8 min; hydroxyebastine,
1.1 min; carebastine, 1.1 min; ebastine, 2.7 min) or IS (terfenadine, 1.3 min). Fig. 2 represents the typical chromatograms
for blank plasma (left column) and plasma spiked with
5 ng/ml for ebastine and hydroxyebastine, respectively, and
50 ng/ml for carebastine and desalkylebastine, respectively,
and 2.5 ng/ml for IS (middle column). The plasma sample
from a volunteer is shown in the right column of Fig. 2.
In the previous study, to purify ebastine and metabolites,
plasma sample was deproteinized with organic mixture, and
was diluted with acidic solution followed by solid phase
extraction [9]. The eluent was further evaporated, and the
residue was reconstituted with mobile phase before loading
onto the column. We found that a liquidliquid extraction in
acidic condition could simultaneously remove ebastine and
its three metabolites from plasma, and that was much sim-

pler than the pretreatment procedure used previously. Such

a liquidliquid extraction method was also used by Rohatagi
et al. [10]. They used isopropyl ether as an extraction solvent
in neutral condition, but the acidic condition was much better
to recover all analytes from plasma.
Furthermore, the present method was sensitive and accurate to measure ebastine, desalkylebastine and hydroxyebastine. Previously, carebastine was only detected in plasma
sample after an oral administration of ebastine because of
the limitation of UV detection [9]. However, we quantified
not only ebastine and its active metabolite, carebastine, but
also desalkylebastine and hydroxyebastine which were not
measured in the study using LC/MS/MS [10].
3.3. Linearity and detection limit
The calibration curves in plasma provided a reliable response from 0.5 to 100 ng/ml for carebastine and desalkylebastine, and from 0.5 to 10 ng/ml for ebastine and hydroxyebastine. The mean equations of the regression lines in plasma
were y = (0.101 0.005)x + (0.004 0.001) for ebastine
(r2 > 0.998, n = 5), y = (0.089 0.011)x + (0.003 0.002)

Table 1
The precision and accuracy of the intra-day assay (n = 5)
Concentration (ng/ml)

Ebastine

0.5
2
5
10

88
96
92
95

a
b

Accuracy (mean% S.D.).

CV, coefficient of variance (%).

11a (12.5)b
5 (5.2)
10 (10.9)
7 (7.4)

Hydroxyebastine
91
93
101
98

9 (9.9)
4 (4.3)
5 (5.0)
6 (6.1)

Concentration (ng/ml)

Carebastine

0.5
5
20
100

93
99
97
95

9 (9.7)
5 (5.1)
6 (6.2)
8 (8.4)

Desalkylebastine
92
98
92
97

5 (5.4)
10 (10.2)
7 (7.6)
6 (6.2)

W. Kang et al. / J. Chromatogr. B 813 (2004) 7580

79

Table 2
The precision and accuracy of the inter-day assay (n = 5)
Concentration (ng/ml)

Ebastine

0.5
2
5
10
a
b

90
94
102
95

Hydroxyebastine

9 (9.6)
8 (7.8)
8 (8.4)
8a

(8.9)b

93
95
99
102

10 (10.8)
8 (8.4)
6 (6.1)
9 (8.8)

Concentration (ng/ml)

Carebastine

0.5
5
20
100

92
99
94
96

9 (9.8)
8 (8.1)
7 (7.4)
9 (9.4)

Desalkylebastine
91
98
95
99

8 (8.8)
7 (7.1)
6 (6.3)
8 (8.1)

Accuracy (mean% S.D.).

CV, coefficient of variance (%).

Table 3
Stability of ebastine and its three metabolites after storage under indicated conditions
Compounds

Concentration (ng/ml)

10 h, ambient in extracts

12 h ambient

2 weeks 80 C

Three freezethaw cycles

Ebastine

2
5

1.9 0.3a
5.1 0.2

1.8 0.4
5.0 0.3

1.9 0.4
4.8 0.5

2.2 0.3
5.3 0.5

Hydroxyebastine

2
5

2.0 0.3
4.8 0.3

1.9 0.3
5.1 0.4

1.9 0.4
4.7 0.5

2.1 0.4
5.1 0.5

Desalkylebastine

5
20

5.1 0.2
19.8 0.5

5.2 0.4
20.2 0.6

4.8 0.5
19.5 0.8

5.0 0.4
20.5 0.6

Carebastine

5
20

4.7 0.4
19.5 0.3

4.9 0.2
20.5 0.7

5.1 0.5
19.8 0.6

4.9 0.4
20.1 0.5

Mean S.D. (n = 3).

for carebastine (r2 > 0.999, n = 5), y = (0.091 0.012)

x + (0.008 0.003) for hydroxyebastine (r2 > 0.998, n = 5),
y = (0.051 0.008)x + (0.002 0.001) for desalkylebastine
(r2 > 0.998, n = 5). The limit of detection was 0.5 ng/ml for desalkylebastine; 0.2 ng/ml for ebastine, hydroxyebastine and
carebastine, respectively, at a signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of 3.
3.4. Precision, accuracy, recovery and stability
The intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy of our
method were listed in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The coef-

ficients of variation of the precision of the intra- and inter-day

validation were less than 12.5 and 10.8%, respectively. The
accuracy of the intra- and inter-day validation were 88101
and 90102%, respectively. The extraction recoveries were
ranged 88105% (n = 3).
Ebastine and its three metabolites were stable in plasma at
room temperature for up to at least 12 h; they also remained
intact at 80 C for up to 2 weeks. With respect to the runtime stability of processed samples, no significant loss of
the four compounds was observed at room temperature, and
no degradation was observed after three cycles of freezing

Fig. 3. Time course of the plasma concentrations of ebastine and its three metabolites in healthy subjects after a single 20 mg oral dose of ebastine. Each point
represents the mean S.D. (n = 10).

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W. Kang et al. / J. Chromatogr. B 813 (2004) 7580

and thawing (Table 3). This information provides the confidence to perform repeated analyses of clinical samples within
12 h.
3.5. Clinical application
Time profiles of plasma ebastine-, hydroxyebastine-,
carebastine-, desalkylebastine-concentration after an oral administration of 20 mg ebastine were illustrated in Fig. 3. Since
CYP2J2 and CYP3A4 have been known to be involved in the
metabolism of ebastine, the time profiles of each metabolite
in plasma could inform us the enzyme activities of CYP3A4
for desalkylebastine, and of CYP2J2 for hydroxyebastine as
well as carebastine. Further study in subjects with a genetic
polymorphism of those enzymes would be interesting to evaluate the effect of genetic variation on the metabolic profiles
of ebastine.
In conclusion, our LC/MS/MS method is a very simple, sensitive, and accurate way to simultaneously determine ebastine and its three metabolites (carebastine, desalkylebastine, hydroxyebastine) in plasma, and is suitable
for in vitro and in vivo pharmacokinetic studies of ebastine.

Acknowledgment
This work was supported by a grant from Ministry of Science and Technology, Korea (National Research Laboratory
program).
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