Vincristine has a wide spectrum of clinical activity and is currently used in the treatment of
leukemia. Despite its high therapeutic properties,
vincristine has common side effects. Accordingly, it is desirable to determine
vincristine in plasma for the use of the
drug with strict monitoring. In the present research, for the first time a hydrophobic deep eutectic
solvent (DES) composed of
methyltrioctylammonium chloride (MTOAC) and
n-butanol in a molar ratio of 1 : 3 was used as the extractant in dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) for the extraction and determination of
vincristine in the plasma of children with
leukemia prior to its analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV). Under optimal experimental conditions, the method showed good linearity with a correlation coefficient (R 2) of 0.9986 in the linear range of 0.06-300 μg L-1, low limit of detection of 0.02 μg L-1 and acceptable extraction efficiency (EE) of 88.4%. In the final stage of the study, this proposed technique was successfully applied to determine
vincristine in real plasma, and the obtained results demonstrated the ability of the synthesized DES to extract drugs from
biological fluids.