Adsorptive voltametry to determine platinum levels in plasma from testicular cancer patients treated with cisplatin

Patients cured of metastatic testicular cancer with cisplatin chemotherapy may suffer late adverse effects even after 20 years. The cause of these lat e adverse effects has not been elucidated yet. One cause might be prolonged tissue retention of platinum in these patients. Therefore, an extremely se nsitive method for measuring platinum in plasma was used to investigate whe ther platinum is still detectable in plasma 10 to 20 years after cisplatin chemotherapy. High-pressure decomposition of plasma is followed by adsorptive voltametric determination of platinum, with a limit of quantification of 6 pg/g plasma . This procedure appeared suitable for the measurement of platinum in 44 fo rmer patients with platinum levels ranging from 22 to 140 pg/g plasma. This method is approximately 6000 times more sensitive than the standard flamel ess atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) method. The platinum levels o f these 44 patients were significantly elevated when compared with 20 contr ol patients who were cured of testicular cancer but did not receive cisplat in chemotherapy (p < 0.001). There was a significant correlation between pl asma platinum concentrations and follow-up time after cisplatin administrat ion (r = -0.658,p < 0.001). This study shows that patients with testicular cancer who were treated with cisplatin can retain platinum in their body for at least 20 years. More da ta are needed to investigate whether there is a relation between the prolon ged retention of platinum and long-term toxicity.