A microscale spectrophotometric method for quantification of doxorubicin in exhaled breath condensate

Abstract

This study presents a microscale spectrophotometric method for the determination of doxorubicin (DOX), one of the most important anticancer drugs in the clinic, based on the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) property of silver nanoparticles. In this report, a LSPR band is produced by a simple and convenient procedure based on the Tollens process in which [Ag(NH₃)₂]⁺ acts as an oxidizing agent and DOX as both a reducing and stabilizing agent. UV-visible spectroscopy, resonance Rayleigh scattering technique and transmission electron microscopy were used for characterization of the formed silver nanoparticles. The observations were often unlike similar studies reported previously. Under the optimized experimental conditions, DOX concentrations in the range of 20–200 ng mL⁻¹ could be quantified using surface plasmon absorbance of the formed AgNPs. This method was used for determining the concentration of DOX in spiked EBC samples with satisfactory results.