High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of the antitumor agent mitomycin c in human blood plasma

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of the antitumor drug mitomycin C in blood plasma samples of cancer patients is described. The drug is extracted from the plasma with chloroform–2-propanol (1+1, $\text{w}\text{w}$) and chromatographed on a reversed-phase column with u.v. detection at 365 nm. The detection limit of the determination is 1 ng ml^-1 for 0.2–1.0 ml plasma samples. Preliminary results of a pharmacokinetic study show that the sensitivity and selectivity of the assay are adequate for drug monitoring in clinical practice. The results obtained from multiwavelength detection suggest the existence of metabolites.