Rationale: Chlorogenic acid (CA) is well known for its various biological activities. Here, a clinical study was performed in patients with advanced malignant cancer to explore its therapeutic effects. We aimed to develop a method to quantify CA in human plasma and urine to assist the clinical pharmacokinetic study.
Methods: Ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with a triple quadruple mass spectrometry was used to separate and detect CA, with puerarin serving as the internal standard.
Results: The method presents an excellent linearity ranging from 5 to 2000 ng/mL for plasma analysis and 50 to 20 000 ng/mL for urine analysis. Intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy were both less than 15% for plasma and urine.
Conclusions: These results showed that the novel UPLC method was robust and sensitive, and fulfilled the requirements for a clinical pharmacokinetic study of CA in patients with advanced cancer.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.