Vitamin C supplementation is necessary for patients with coronavirus disease: An ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry finding
Yaru Xing, Bing Zhao, Lin Yin, Mingquan Guo, Huichun Shi, Zhaoqin Zhu, Lin Zhang, Juan He, Yun Ling, Menglu Gao, Hongzhou Lu, Enqiang Mao, Lijun Zhang
Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, doi:10.1016/j.jpba.2021.113927
To administer vitamin C (VC) with precision to patients with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), we developed an ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method to assess plasma VC concentrations. 31 patients with COVID-19 and 51 healthy volunteers were enrolled. VC stability was evaluated in blood, plasma, and precipitant-containing stabilizers. A proportion of 7.7 % of VC was degraded in blood at room temperature (RT) (approximately 20-25 • C) at 1.5 h post administration with respect to the proportion degraded at 0.5 h, but without statistical difference. VC was stable in plasma for 0.75 h at RT, 2 h at 4 • C, 5 days at −40 • C, and 4 h in precipitant-containing stabilizer (2 % oxalic acid) at RT. The mean plasma concentration of VC in patients with COVID-19 was 2.00 mg/L (0.5-4.90) (n = 8), which was almost 5-fold lower than that in healthy volunteers (9.23 mg/L (3.09. 35.30)) (n = 51). After high-dose VC treatment, the mean VC concentration increased to 13.46 mg/L (3.93. 34.70) (n = 36), higher than that in healthy volunteers, and was within the normal range (6-20 mg/L). In summary, we developed a simple UPLC-MS/MS method to quantify VC in plasma, and determined the duration for which the sample remained stable. VC levels in patients with COVID-19 were considerably low, and supplementation at 100 mg/kg/day is considered highly essential.
Declaration of Competing Interest All authors declared no potential conflicts. Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpba.2021. 113927.
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