Ion-paired high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of mitoxantrone in physiological fluids

Mitoxantrone is one of the newer anthracenedione derivatives which has already been studied in phase I and II trials, where it has shown significant antitumor activity against a variety of human tumours. To determine the prolonged terminal half-life of mitoxantrone, we developed a sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic method, providing a detection limit of 1 ng/ml of extracted serum. This system uses a C18 reversed-phase column. The mobile phase consists of a mixture of acetonitrile (30%, v/v) and an ammonium formate buffer (70%, v/v) with a pH of 2.7. Hexane sulphonic acid is added as an ion-pair former. Detection at a wavelength of 658 nm provides a highly selective system, showing no interfering peaks. Ametantrone, another anthracenedione derivative, is used as an internal standard. The extraction procedure for serum also uses hexane sulphonic acid in an ion-paired system. Because of the highly selective detection wavelength, urine samples can be injected without a sample clean-up procedure. This very sensitive method, combined with high selectivity and a fast and inexpensive serum clean-up procedure, has allowed us to document the prolonged terminal plasma half-life of mitoxantrone (levels of 2-5 ng/ml of plasma can still be detected six days after an intravenous infusion of 15 mg/m2 over 30 min). In urine an as yet unidentified metabolite was discovered.     

QUANTUM YIELDS OF TRIPLET FORMATION OF SOME DERIVATIVES OF ANTHRAQUINONE

Abstract— Quantum yields of triplet formation for five amino substituted anthraquinones have been determined by the comparative actinometer method using laser flash photolysis. Substitution reduces the yields to values of ˜10^--². and the requirement of low laser intensities required high sensitivity of detection of triplet absorption. The ø_T values are compared with the quantum efficiencies of fluorescence and decomposition for the compounds, and the criteria for light stability discussed.