Quantification of topotecan and its metabolite N-desmethyltopotecan in human plasma, urine and faeces by high-performance liquid chromatographic methods.

Sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods have been developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of the antitumor drug topotecan and its metabolite N-desmethyltopotecan in human plasma, urine and faeces. Both compounds are reversibly hydrolysed to their hydroxycarboxylate forms at physiologic pH. Separate HPLC systems have been developed for the determination of lactone and total (lactone plus hydroxycarboxylate forms) concentrations in plasma. The instability of the analytes in plasma requires immediate protein precipitation with ice-cold methanol. The lactone forms of the analytes were stable in the methanol extracts for at least 15 months when stored at -70 degrees C. For the determination of the total levels, the plasma extracts were acidified with 25 mM phosphoric acid to convert the compounds into their lactone forms quantitatively. The sample pretreatment procedure for urine included dilution in methanol while the faecal samples were homogenized in distilled water and then extracted twice with an acetonitrile-ammonium acetate mixture. Separation was achieved on reversed-phase columns (Zorbax SB-C18) and detection was performed fluorimetrically at 380/527 nm. Within-run and between-run precisions were less than 10% and average accuracies were between 90 and 110%. The methods were used in a mass balance study in patients with malignant solid tumors to determine the disposition and routes of elimination of topotecan and N-desmethyltopotecan.