Liquid-liquid extraction combined with high performance liquid chromatography-diode array-ultra-violet for simultaneous determination of antineoplastic drugs in plasma

A liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection method for simultaneous analysis of four chemically and structurally different antineoplastic drugs (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, 5-fluorouracil and ifosfamide) was developed. The assay was performed by isocratic elution, with a C18 column (5 mu m, 250 x 4.6 mm) and mobile phase constituted by water pH 4.0- acetonitrile-methanol (68:19:13, v/v/v), which allowed satisfactory separation of the compounds of interest. LLE, with ethyl acetate, was used for sample clean-up with recoveries ranging from 60 to 98%. The linear ranges were from 0.5 to 100 mu g mL(-1), for doxorubicin and 1 to 100 mu g mL(-1), for the other compounds. The relative standard deviations ranged from 5.5 to 17.7%. This method is a fast and simple alternative that can be used, simultaneously, for the determination of the four drugs in plasma, with a range enabling quantification of the drugs in pharmacokinetics, bioequivalence and therapeutic drug-monitoring studies.