Lanthanide-sensitized luminescence and chemiluminescence in the systems containing most often used medicines; a review

The lanthanides ions with their well-defined energy levels make excellent objects for investigation of energy transfer processes involving a wide range of organic compounds in different chemical environments. This paper presents a review of literature on the lanthanide-sensitized luminescence and chemiluminescence in the systems containing medicines from the three most often used groups: tetracyclines, fluoroquinolones and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Enhanced emission of lanthanides(III) as a result of formation of stable complexes as a result of intra- and intermolecular energy transfer has been widely used for design of sensitive methods for determination of the above medicines and a number of other analytes. This review is concerned with the use of lanthanides as sensitizers in chemiluminescence systems, instead of classical organic dyes. The review of literature presented in this paper is focused on the correlation of the drug structure and the lanthanide ion (Ln(III)) used as a sensitizer. Also the advanced aspects of the lanthanide-sensitized luminescence related to the use of nanomaterials doped with lanthanide ions in biology and medicine and comments on predicted challenges and perspectives of analytical chemistry based on the methods involving the lanthanide-sensitized luminescence and chemiluminescence.