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Determination of 5-fluorouracil in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

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Abstract

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) has a broad spectrum of anti-tumor activity, widely applied to the treatment of cancers. However, it is necessary to determine the plasma concentration of 5-FU in clinical practice due to its narrow therapeutic index. Therefore, a simple, economic and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed and validated for the determination of 5-FU in human plasma. Ethyl acetate was chosen as extraction reagent. Chromatographic separation was performed on a Diamonsil C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 μm) with the mobile phase consisting of methanol and 20 mmol/L ammonium formate using a linear gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. 5-FU and 5-bromouracil (5-BU) were detected by UV detector at 265 nm. The calibration curve was linear over the concentration range of 5–500 ng/mL and the correlation coefficient was not less than 0.992 6 for all calibration curves. The intra- and inter-day precisions were less than 10.5% and 4.3%, respectively, and the accuracy was within ±3.7%. The recovery at all concentration levels was 80.1±8.6%. 5-FU was stable under possible conditions of storing and handling. This method is proved applicable to therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies of 5-FU in human.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Yuan Gu  (谷 元)

  2. Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics, Tianjin Institute of Pharmaceutical Research, Tianjin, 300193, China

    Yuan Gu  (谷 元), Rong Lu  (陆 榕), Duanyun Si  (司端运) & Changxiao Liu  (刘昌孝)

Authors
  1. Yuan Gu  (谷 元)
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  2. Rong Lu  (陆 榕)
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  3. Duanyun Si  (司端运)
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  4. Changxiao Liu  (刘昌孝)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Changxiao Liu  (刘昌孝).

Additional information

Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30630075 and 20675056) and Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (“973” Program) (No. 2006CB933303).

GU Yuan, born in 1983, female, doctorate student.

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Gu, Y., Lu, R., Si, D. et al. Determination of 5-fluorouracil in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Trans. Tianjin Univ. 16, 167–173 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-010-0031-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-010-0031-4

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