Quantitative Bioanalysis of Anticancer Drugs by LC-MS/MS

Monitoring of anticancer drugs in biological fluids and tissues is important during pre-clinical and clinical use. Traditionally liquid chromatography (LC) in combination with ultraviolet fluorescence or electrochemical detection is employed for this purpose. The successful hyphenation of LC and mass spectrometry (MS) however has dramatically changed scope of analysis. MS detection provides better sensitivity and selectivity than UV detection and in addition is applicable to a significantly larger group of compounds than fluorescence or electrochemical detection. As new drugs continuously emerge in the market this methodology has now become the method of choice in quantitative bioanalysis particularly when many samples have to be analyzed in a short time period. The need to analyze anticancer drugs and their metabolites with prompt turnaround times has stimulated even more rapid approaches to analysis using robotic based purification methodology and short LC chromatographic run times.