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Background: Imatinib is an antineoplastic agent acting as a tyrosine kinase inhibitor to treat cancer such as lymphoblastic leukemia. The dosage of the anticancer drugs plays a critical role in the survival of the patients. For this reason, the patient's plasma and urine samples should be monitored to obtain the necessary information regarding the toxicity of the drug. In this study, the applicability of preconcentration and dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for extraction of trace amount of Imatinib in aqueous samples, before a determination by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), was evaluated.
Materials and methods: The targeted drug was extracted from an aqueous sample with pH= 11 (the donor phase) into an extraction solvent (n-octanol) in the dispersive solution (acetone) as an acceptor phase, which has been dispersed in the sample solution. Different variables on extraction efficiency were studied and optimized by chemometrics design and the Taguchi method. The variables were the donor phase's pH, type of extraction solvent, type of dispersive solvent, speed stirring, extraction time, and extraction temperature.
Results: The optimum conditions of the test were as pH of donor phase:11, type of extraction solvent: n-octanol, type of dispersive solvent: acetone, speed stirring: 500rpm , extraction time: 45min,  extraction temperature: 65 centigrade.
Conclusion: The developed method was simple, rapid, sensitive, and suitable for determining trace amounts of Imatinib in aqueous samples.