Instability of the anticancer agent etoposide under in vitro culture conditions.

Degradation of etoposide is rapid under in vitro culture conditions. At pH 7.4 and 37 degrees C, the isomerisation of trans-etoposide to the inactive compound cis-etoposide has a half-life of 2 days in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium and results in the loss of 90% of the active drug within 1 week. As a consequence, prolonged incubations with etoposide in in vitro assays may lead to erroneous interpretations ignoring the real in vitro situation. The degradation is not influenced by organic compounds such as bovine serum albumin or amino acids but depends strongly on the pH value and, to a lesser degree, on the ionic strength of the medium. Therefore, we propose a mathematical correction based on the pH value so as to obtain the real exposure of cells to trans-etoposide during in vitro assays.