Determination of acetaldehyde in blood by solid phase extraction and high performance liquid chromatography

A simple method has been developed for the measurement of acetaldehyde in blood. Samples were treated with perchloric acid to precipitate proteins. After centrifugation, the supernatant, together with the internal standard (crotonaldehyde), were reacted with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine reagent. The derivatized acetaldehyde was then isolated by solid phase extraction and followed by high performance liquid chromatography quantitation. This method had a minimal detectable concentration of 0.28 microM, and displayed an intra-assay precision of 2.23% and an inter-assay precision of 5.18%. The recoveries of acetaldehyde at added concentrations of 1.42 and 7.14 microM were 106.7% and 101.9%, respectively.