Determination of sodium with ion-selective electrodes.

The advent of ion-selective electrodes made possible the potentiometry of sodium in serum and plasma. These methods were based on dilution of serum, as done in flame photometry, and the results were identical. Analysis of whole blood precludes dilution and so "direct" potentiometry was developed. Results by this technique are variable but tend to compensate for the spurious hyponatremias found by the "indirect" dilution methods due to displacement of volume by lipids and protein. However, there is no unambiguous theoretical basis on which to choose between the various direct ion-selective-electrode techniques and instruments. As an alternative, I propose use of current indirect methods, with numerical correction for the shift in normal sodium values in the presence of abnormal lipid and (or) protein. A table was constructed for making such corrections.