A Rapid Spectrophotometric Blood Cyanide Determination Applicable to Emergency Toxicology

Abstract

Cyanide determination in whole blood can be performed by spectrophotometry after using diffusion coupled with coloration by hydroxocobalamin in a Conway dish. The technique may be accelerated by the use of a heating sheet at 45 degrees C. The method proved to be specific, sensitive, and fast, thus permitting measurements in emergency situations.

Effect of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy on whole blood cyanide concentrations in carbon monoxide intoxicated patients from fire accidents

“…Another possible explanation for this observation may be found in the delay from the time of CN exposure and HBO treatment. The CN half-life in whole blood is only 1 hour [21]. Consequently, CN may be irreversibly stored in the cells by the time the patients receive HBO.…”

“…CN was measured using a Conway/microdiffusion method, where CN is liberated from blood in a gaseous phase and subsequently bound to OHCob forming cyanocobalamin [21]. The Conway chambers (Bel-Art products, Pequannock, NJ, USA) were placed on a heating plate and all reactions took place at 45°C.…”

“…Thus any CN bound or free from the blood evaporates and binds to the OHCob in the inner ring and forms cyanocobalamin. Accordingly, previously given OHCob should not interfere with measurements of the cyanide concentrations in whole blood [21] After 30 min the solution in the absorbent chamber was aspirated and absorption at 361 nm was read (Shimadzu UV-1601 spectrophotometer, Shimadzu, Kyoto, Japan). The absorption increased linearly with the concentration of CN in the blood sample up to 100 μmol/L.…”

Rapid determination of cyanide in human plasma and urine by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry with two-step derivatization

“…Several methods, including spectrometry [8][9][10][11], electrochemistry [12,13] and chromatography [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] have been reported for the determination of CN. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) appears most efficient because of the enormous abilities of high-resolution capillary column together with high selective detection system.…”

Analysis of Cyanide in Blood by Headspace-Isotope-Dilution-GC-MS

“…The classical method is based on a colorimetric method with microdiffusion (Feldstein and Klendshoj 1954;Holzbecher and Ellenberger 1985), although spectrophotometric (Epstein 1947;Hughes et al 2003;Upadhyay and Gupta 1984;Laforge et al 1994) and fluorimetric methods have also been reported (Lundquist et al 1985;Felscher and Wulfmeyer 1998;Chinaka et al 1998;Suzuki and Hattori 1982). Methods using gas chromatography (GC) with electron-capture detection (ECD) (Odoul et al 1994;Wu and Hwang 1984;Valentour et al 1974;Shiono et al 1991;Maseda et al 1989), nitrogen-phosphorus detection (NPD) (Funazo et al 1982), and mass spectroscopy (MS) (Thomson and Anderson 1980), after suitable derivatizations, are frequently applied to the analysis.…”