Development and Validation of a Spectrofluorimetric Method for the Determination of Erlotinib in Spiked Human Plasma

A rapid and sensitive spectrofluorimetric method was developed and validated for the determination of erlotinib (ETB), a potent anticancer drug, in spiked human plasma without any derivatization. The described method was validated and the analytical parameters of linearity, accuracy, precision (intra- and inter-day), limit of detection (LOD), and limit of quantification (LOQ) were evaluated. The relation between the fluorescence intensity and concentration was found to be linear (r² 0.9998) over the range 125 to 1000?ng/mL with the detection limit of 15?ng/mL. A simple liquid-liquid extraction method was followed in order to extract the drug from spiked plasma. The mean absolute recoveries of ETB were 85.59?% (±0.57), 86.91?% (±1.77) and 89.31?% (±3.01) at spiked plasma ETB concentration of 5000, 3750 and 2500?ng/mL, respectively. The spectrofluorimetric method presented here is a rapid, simple, specific, and reproducible method and can be used to characterize the plasma pharmacokinetics of ETB.