Determination of cisplatin and some possible metabolites by ion-pairing chromatography with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric detection.

A sensitive method is described for measuring cisplatin and some possible metabolites. The method combines reversed-phase ion-pairing liquid chromatography (LC) with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for platinum-specific detection. Separation conditions for cisplatin hydrolysis products and the reaction products of cisplatin with methionine, cysteine, and glutathione have been investigated with sodium dodecylsulfate or heptanesulfonate as the ion-pairing agent. The detection limit for cisplatin was found to be 0.1 ng, corresponding to a concentration detection limit of 1 ng/ml when using an injection volume of 100 microliters. This study has demonstrated the usefulness of LC-ICP-MS for cisplatin metabolism studies.