Assessment of the methods available for the determination of carbon monoxide in blood

Experimental evaluation of methods for assessing the carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) content in blood using gas chromatography, UV-visible spectrophotometry (three methods), and magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) has been made. From the point of view of measurements where the COHb content is low (less than 15%), elevated simply by the smoking population, the spectrophotometric method by Rodkey, et al. (7) emerges as the most satisfactory. MCD analysis, however, is potentially considerably simpler, not requiring chemical pretreatment of the blood, and provided that analysis time can be improved, is likely to replace the spectrophotometric method as the method of choice.