Cytostatics are a broad group of mostly organic compounds possessing a diverse range of physico-chemical characteristics. The principles of their determination in environmental samples are similar to those applied to biological samples; though their presence in complex environmental matrices in trace amounts along with their structural diversity, make their determination a major challenge. This may justify the lack of data on occurrence, fate and degradation of cytostatic pharmaceuticals in the environment. Besides review on the existing literature dealing with the analysis of cytostatics in the environment, the scope of this work is to support the ongoing research in this field. This approach will require advanced sampling techniques and state-of-the-art analytical tools, including the latest separation methods and cutting-edge instrumentation.
COBISS.SI-ID: 24832295
Ketoprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, which is during UV irradiation rapidly transformed into benzophenone derivatives. To enable the detection and structural elucidation of the widest range of its transformation products, this study applies complementary chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques including gas chromatography coupled to single quadrupole or ion trap mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography hyphenated with a quadrupole–time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Based on structural information gained in tandem and multiple mass spectrometric experiments, and highly accurate molecular mass measurements, chemical structures of 22 transformation products are proposed and used to construct an overall breakdown pathway. Among the identified transformation products all but two compounds retained the benzophenone moiety – a result, which raises important issues concerning the possible toxic synergistic effects of KP and its transformation products.
COBISS.SI-ID: 24579111