Analysis of three anticancer drugs (5-Fluorouracil, Cyclophosphamide and Hydroxyurea) in water samples by HPLC-MS/MS

Abstract

Anticancer drugs are very harmful chemical which use for cancer patient. It has a lot of side effect to cancer patient or anyone who consume contaminated body intake. A rapid, reliable and highly selective performance analysis method was developed for commonly used anticancer drugs (5-Fluorouracil, Cyclophosphamide and Hydroxyurea) residual in water samples. The analytical processes were performed using solid-phase extraction (Oasis@ HLB cartridge) and measured by High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Separation system consist with guard column Agilent@ Zorbax Eclipse XDB C18 (I.D. 4.6 x 50 mm, 1.8 μm particle size) and analytical column Agilent@ Zorbax Eclipse Plus C18 (I.D. 2.1 x 100 mm, 1.8 μm particle size) using gradient mixture of methanol + 0.1% formic acid and water + 0.1% formic acid as mobile phase with multiple injection mode. Simultaneous anticancer drugs were detected by MS/MS using electrospray ionization and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) for both positive (Cyclophosphamide and Hydroxyurea) and negative (5-Fluorouracil) charges. The method validations were included acceptable, accuracy, precision and specificity for detection of 5-Fluorouracil, Cyclophosphamide and Hydroxyurea shown linearity was achieved from 1 to 50 μg/L, R2>0.99 and the calculated limit of detected for 5-Fluorouracil 0.013 μg/L, for Cyclophosphamide was 0.006 μg/L, for Hydroxyurea was 0.050 μg/L. The results from various water sample type were compared to predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) for environmental and human health risk assessment.