Development of a high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of a new potent radioiodinated melanoma imaging and therapeutic agent

N-(2-diethylaminoethyl)-6-iodoquinoxaline-2-carbamide (ICF 01012) is a new melanoma imaging agent showing promising properties for application in internal radionuclide therapy. We developed an analytical protocol for detection of ICF 01012 in biological samples using HPLC. The proposed method was first validated using standard of ICF 01012 and four potent metabolites of this compound and then applied to follow the metabolic fate of [125I]ICF 01012 after injection in melanoma-bearing mice. The results demonstrate that this method exhibits a good linearity (r2 = 0.9947), specificity and acceptable accuracy. This simple method appears convenient and sufficient for pharmacokinetic studies on [125I]ICF 01012.