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Published on: December 20, 2016
Isotope dilution-mass spectrometry determination of blood cyanide by headspace gas chromatography
Pierre Dumas1, Guy Gingras, Alain LeBlanc
1Laboratoire de Toxicologie, Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, 945, Avenue Wolfe, 4e étage, Sainte-Foy, Québec, G1V 5B3, Canada. pierre.dumas@inspq.qc.ca
Abstract:
A direct and sensitive method for the determination of blood cyanide by isotope dilution was developed. The blood is placed in a headspace vial, and K13C15N is added as internal standard. Addition of phosphoric acid liberates the cyanide as HCN. The detection is accomplished by mass spectrometry after a fine mass calibration tuning. The detection limit obtained is 0.3 micromol/L. The within- and inter-run coefficients of variation are 4.4% (for a concentration of 2.5 micromol/L) and 3.9% (for a concentration of 4.7 micromol/L), respectively. The observed recovery is 98%. A round-robin exercise was carried out to compare the performance of this method with others currently in use in other clinical laboratories.
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