Gemcitabine is a deoxycytidine analog that has been used for a broad spectrum of tumor, such as nonsmall-cell lung cancer, bladder cancer and pancreatic cancer. Because gemcitabine is hydrophilic, hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC), where analytes are retained on a polar column according to their hydrophilicity, should be adequate for separation analysis of gemcitabine. In the present study, we proposed a hydrophilic interaction chromatography with ultraviolet (HILIC-UV) method with liquid-liquid extraction and adding tetrahydrouridine to plasma samples for gemcitabine analysis of clinical samples with respect to daily and wide usage. The method successfully determined gemcitabine in 56 plasma samples of 30 unique patients. Mean plasma concentration of gemcitabine was 15.0 ± 6.0 μg/mL (mean ± standard deviation). The concentration range is consistent with the data from previous literatures. Our proposed HILIC-UV method is simple and easy handling, and is widely and clinically usable for determination of gemcitabine in human plasma.
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