Dispersive Liquid-Liquid Microextraction Combined with Liquid Chromatography for Preconcentrations and Determination of Tamoxifen in Biological Samples

The present study aimed to use the capabilities of dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with HPLC-UV in a fully optimized analytical approach for tamoxifen analysis in aqueous, urine, and blood serum samples. Multivariate data analysis and chemometrics methods were utilized for optimizing the effect of independent variables on the efficiency of the procedure. Under the optimized conditions, the analytical signal was linear in the range of 5-300 ng/mL for aqueous and urine samples, and 10-300 ng/mL for blood serum matrix. In addition, the limit of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) were 0.9 and 2.86 ng/mL in the aqueous sample, 1.57 and 4.77 ng/mL in the urine sample, and 2.38 and 7.21 ng/mL in blood serum, respectively. The precision including repeatability (RSD %) and reproducibility (RSD %) for all samples were < 7.5% and < 8.5%, respectively. Finally, the feasibility study was evaluated for tamoxifen analysis in real samples with satisfactory relative recoveries (96.5-105.1%).