Anthracycline analysis by capillary electrophoresis - Application to the analysis of daunorubicine in Kaposi sarcoma tumor

Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection is now a well-known sensitive an d selective detection mode for capillary electrophoresis (CE) analysis. It has been shown to be 100- to 10 0000-times more sensitive than UV detection and little work has been done using LIF in conjunction with high-performan ce liquid chromatography (HPLC). The need for greater resolution and higher sensitivity for the analysis of anthracyclines (fluorescent chemotherapic drugs), prompted us to compare CE-LLF and HPLC-LIF, for the detection of th ese substances. CE-LIF sensitivity based on quantity of anthracycline injec ted is 50-times greater than that obtained with HPLC-LIF, because of the in jected sample volume. Analysis of daunorubicin in Kaposy sarcoma tumors and in plasma are presented. The decrease of the concentration of daunorubicin in the tumor and in the plasma following time show the same behavior, indi cating identical concentrations of the anthracycline in both samples. (C) 1 999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.