Determination of 5-fluorouracil in environmental samples by solid-phase extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is one of the most widely used antineoplastic drugs. It can be therefore considered to be a model compound for the identificatio n of exposure routes during preparation and administration of cytostatic ag ents, especially for nucleoside analogue drugs. In this study, an HPLC-UV m ethod was validated for determination of 5-FU in wipe samples by direct ana lysis of the aqueous solutions and in air samples by using solid-phase extr action (SPE). When samples were pre-treated on styrene-divinylbenzene resin SPE columns, a 20-fold preconcentration of the analyte was achieved. As re gards air samples, correlation coefficients were always higher than 0.998 a nd the limit of detection was assessed at 15 ng on filter. In order to veri fy the reliability of these procedures, 5-chlorouracil was used as internal standard. The procedure presented here has been applied to the environment al monitoring of occupational exposed subjects. The amount of 5-FU ranged f rom 0.043 to 0.23 mug/m(3) in air samples and from 0.2 to 470.1 mug/dm(2) i n wipe samples. 5-FU was also detected on the internal side of the gloves ( 0.07 to 3.77 mug/pair of gloves). (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.