Acta Pharm. 61 (2011) 93-102

 

full paper

Short communication

 

Simultaneous determination of iron and copper in children's sera by FAAS

SVJETLANA LUTEROTTI, TONČICA VUKMAN KORDIĆ and SLAVICA DODIG

sluter@pharma.hr

1 University of Zagreb, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Zagreb, Croatia

2 HALMED − Agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Devices, Zagreb, Croatia

3 Children´s Hospital Srebrnjak, Zagreb, Croatia

Accepted February 14, 2011

 

A new and simple flame atomic-absorption spectrometric (FAAS) method is proposed for simultaneous determination of iron and copper in children's sera. It is based on single-step sample pretreatment (deproteinization with 3 mol L–1 HCl, ratio 1:1) and single-step calibration using 1.5 mol L–1 HCl standard. During method’s optimization a short multifactorial design experiment was used. The proposed method assures accuracy, sensitivity and precision comparable to that of the reference methods. The new approach is simple and time-, labour- and serum-saving, the latter being especially important in pediatric diagnostics.

 

Keywords: iron, copper, children´s serum, FAAS, single-step determination