Five minute analysis of chemotherapy drugs in saliva

摘要

Cancer treatment often includes chemotherapy drugs that prevent cancer cell growth through a variety of biochemical mechanisms, but are not target specific and kill other cells. Consequently, the dosage has a narrow range of safe and effective use. Furthermore, because of the dangerous side-effects of these drugs, clinical trials are not performed, and dosage is based on the limited statistics of the response of previously treated patients and administered according to body surface area. Monitoring dosage during administration would clearly improve patient outcome. Unfortunately current practices require 10-20 milliliters of blood per analysis, and multiple samples to profile pharmacokinetics may further jeopardize the patient's health. Saliva analysis has long been considered an attractive alternative, but the large sample volumes are difficult to obtain. In an effort to overcome this limitation we have been investigating metal-doped sol-gels to both separate drugs and their metabolites from saliva and generate surface-enhanced Raman spectra. We have incorporated the sol-gel in a disposable pipette format, and generally no more than two drops (100 microL) of sample are required to perform analysis. The detailed molecular vibrational information allows chemical identification, while the increase in Raman scattering by six orders of magnitude or more allows detection of nanomolar concentrations. Measurements of chemotherapy drugs at relevant concentration are presented.