Trace-element determination in individual peripheral blood cells and possible diagnostic applications

Trace elements are indispensable for the effective and proper functioning of biological systems. Recent years have demonstrated the conspicuous lack of knowledge about trace-element physiology. Establishment of reference values is a very difficult task, requiring the consideration of and compensation for a number of possible simultaneous phenomena.Peripheral blood has been used in medical diagnosis for a very long time, because, among other things, it is easily accessible. In the search for signs of lack or excess of minerals and trace elements in disease, the interest has been focused mainly on blood plasma or serum. The utilization of blood cells as a marker model is proposed here. The advent of the nuclear microprobe made possible the determination of elemental profiles of individual cells.The techniques of blood cell separation and preparation for microprobe analysis are presented and discussed. As an example of a possible diagnostic application, a set of reference data from a control group is compared to corresponding data from a group of patients suffering from acute myeloid leukemia.