Photofrin (porfimer sodium) is a porphyrin derivative used in the treatment of a variety of cancers by photodynamic therapy. This oligomer complex and a variety of porphyrin monomers, dimers and trimers were analyzed with five different mass spectral ionization techniques: fast atom bombardment, UV and IR matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization, electrospray ionization, and laser desorption/jet-cooling photoionization. All five approaches resulted in very similar oligomer distributions with an average oligomer length of 2.7 +/- 0.1 porphyrin units. In addition to the Photofrin analysis, this study provides a side-by-side comparison of the spectra for the five different mass spectrometric techniques.
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