Quality-control sera for routine determination of aluminum by electrothermal atomic absorption spectroscopy

Several commercially available quality-control sera were analyzed for aluminum content by atomic absorption spectroscopy with a stabilized-temperature graphite furnace. The values obtained ranged between 4 and 1250 micrograms/L (0.148 to 46.235 mumol/L). No significant difference was detected for between-vial variation for four lots of quality-control sera (p greater than 0.05). Control sera stored in 1-mL polypropylene vials and frozen at -20 degrees C for up to six months showed no significant variation in aluminum content (p greater than 0.05), but those stored in their original glass containers had significantly increased aluminum content (p less than 0.001) over a four-week period.