Rapid quantitative determination of doxorubicin and its metabolites in biological samples.

A rapid sensitive and selective method is developed for the plasma analysis of doxorubicin and its metabolites, doxorubicinol and doxorubicinone with daunorubicin as the internal standard, by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection and a "zorbax ODS" column. An eluent containing tetrahydrofuran and trietylamine afforded improved efficiency and resolution and was used to resolve the four anthracycline derivatives in a sole isocratic run. An example of the plasma levels obtained in a cancerous patient after two different administrations is shown.