Mitoxantrone is one of the newer anthracenedione derivatives which has already been studied in phase I and II trials, where it has shown significant antitumor activity against a variety of human tumours. To determine the prolonged terminal half-life of mitoxantrone, we developed a sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic method, providing a detection limit of 1 ng/ml of extracted serum. This system uses a C18 reversed-phase column. The mobile phase consists of a mixture of acetonitrile (30%, v/v) and an ammonium formate buffer (70%, v/v) with a pH of 2.7. Hexane sulphonic acid is added as an ion-pair former. Detection at a wavelength of 658 nm provides a highly selective system, showing no interfering peaks. Ametantrone, another anthracenedione derivative, is used as an internal standard. The extraction procedure for serum also uses hexane sulphonic acid in an ion-paired system. Because of the highly selective detection wavelength, urine samples can be injected without a sample clean-up procedure. This very sensitive method, combined with high selectivity and a fast and inexpensive serum clean-up procedure, has allowed us to document the prolonged terminal plasma half-life of mitoxantrone (levels of 2-5 ng/ml of plasma can still be detected six days after an intravenous infusion of 15 mg/m2 over 30 min). In urine an as yet unidentified metabolite was discovered.