Plasma sample preparation by ultrafiltration for FTIR analysis

Total body water (TBW) may be significantly altered with disease. Isotope dilution techniques, considered to be the "gold standard" methods for measuring TBW, are expensive, time consuming and require considerable expertise, especially during the sample preparatory phase. In this study, a new method, ultrafiltration (UF), was hypothesised to be an efficient alternative to vacuum sublimation (VS) in the preparation of plasma samples for Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) determination of TBW. Deuterium Oxide (D2O) concentrations were prepared in human plasma and subjected to both techniques. FTIR analysis was carried out on the resulting VS and UF solutions and on D2O concentrations in distilled water. The resulting absorbance values were then statistically compared. Urea concentrations prepared in D2O-containing plasma were also compared to "blank" plasma to investigate the effect of high plasma urea concentration on the resulting H2O/D2O mixture obtained during UF Paired t-tests showed that the VS plasma samples (p=0.003), but not the UF samples (p=0.9), were significantly different to D2O standards prepared in distilled water. While there was no evidence of an effect of urea on UF at low (0.4 g/L) D2O concentration, a marginal (p=0.04) effect occurred at a higher (1.6 g/L) D2O level. Throughput of samples was much more efficient with the UF technique. These findings indicate that the new UF method is an accurate, more efficient method of plasma sample preparation than the VS method in the FTIR determination of TBW.