Simple manual procedure for determination of serum triglycerides.

We describe a modified method for determining serum triglycerides (triacylglycerols), which is based on the heptane extraction procedure of Gottfried and Rosenberg [Clin. Chem. 19, 1077 (1973)] with the stable saponification, oxidation, and color development reagents of Neri and Frings [Clin. Chem. 19, 1201 (1973)]. This modified method eliminates one heating step, reduces saponification time to 5 min, absorbances are read at room temperature, and the calibration curve is linear to 3.0 g/liter. A sample comparison between the proposed method and the automated Block and Jarrett [Am. J. Med. Technol. 35, 1 (1969)] procedure showed no significant difference (r equals 0.98). The coefficient of variation (47 duplicate samples) for the modified method was 6.3%. Further validation was obtained from analysis of quality-control samples; the proposed method gave equivalent values.