[Determination of blood iron and the total fixation capacity of transferrin by a simple automatic technic without...

An automated method without dialysis for determining serum iron is described. It is an adaptation of the Lauber procedure to the Technicon Auto Analyser I: serum iron is split from its protein combination by exposure to an acetate pH 5.8 buffer, in the presence of a detergent (Teepol 710) which prevents any precipitation of proteins. Iron is maintained in ferrous state by addition of sodium dithionite and is quantitated with bathophenanthrolin colorimetry. Serum samples are analysed at a rate of 60/H. It is necessary to run a blank for each serum sample. Between 20 and 500 mug iron/100 ml the color intensity agrees with Beer's law. The reproducibility is good, and the variation coefficient less than 1.2 per cent. Our results are not significatively different of those obtained with the ICSH standard method. Bilirubin does not interfere. Iron added is satisfactorily recovered. Our method can also be used for determining the transferrin iron binding capacity.