Pharmacokinetic monitoring of anticancer drugs at King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Pharmacokinetic monitoring of anticancer agents has the potential to become of considerable clinical value. Recognizing this and the leading role of the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSH & RC) in healthcare delivery in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, particularly in oncology, the authors have established a pharmacokinetics service and research laboratory equipped with the state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation. After the acquisition of these instruments, we initiated research work that lead to the development of improved analytical methods for methotrexate and 7-OH methotrexate (high-performance liquid chromatography [HPLC]), doxorubicin (HPLC), etoposide (HPLC), 5-fluorouracil (HPLC), mitoxantrone (HPLC), mesna and dimesna (HPLC), taxol (HPLC), aminoglutethimide (HPLC), tamoxifen (HPLC), and acrolein (HPLC), cisplatin or carboplatin (electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry, ETAAS), cyclophosphamide (gas chromatography) and CCNU and BCNU (gas chromatography). Currently, most of these drugs are monitored selectively as requested by oncologists at the KFSH & RC. The authors are aware that controlled, randomized studies of the concentration-effect relationships for many of these drugs are still missing. However, the authors hope that once these studies become available, this service will be used more fully.