Monitoring of aluminum in whole blood, plasma, serum, and water by a single procedure using flameless atomic absorption spectrophotometry.

A simple, time-saving procedure to measure aluminum (AI) in whole blood, plasma, and water samples of low ionic strength by flameless atomic absorption spectrometry is presented. With this procedure, an analagous pretreatment is given to all samples. Moreover, the pretreated samples are analyzed using an identical program of the atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The detection limit is 1.3 micrograms/L for aqueous solutions and 1.9 micrograms/L, 1.8 micrograms/L, and 2.3 microL for serum, plasma, and blood samples respectively. The precision of the method varies between 2.8% and 4.2% of all analyses. Using this method, a comparison was made between Al levels in whole blood (AlB) and plasma (AlP) in rats and AlB and AlP in renal patients. The AlB and AlP were strongly correlated. It is concluded that the monitoring of AlB may have a similar prognostic value for toxicity as the monitoring of AlP, but more experimental advantages.