Advances in inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry: human nutrition and toxicology

The Contribution of Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry to Biomedical Research

“…At present only a limited number of reference analytical methods and certified reference materials exist for elemental concentrations in clinical samples and the application of ICP-MS to this field is appealing. Although dilution with stable isotopes has been reported to improve the accuracy of ICP-MS determinations (5,8,56,71,72), isotope ratios measured with presently available instrumentation for ICP-MS suffer from mass bias and time-dependent variations which are not compatible in most cases with the establishment of definitive methods. However, ICP-MS is a technique still under development and further improvements in the precision and the accuracy of the measurement of isotope ratios are to be expected (49).…”

“…Electron impact mass spectrometry (EIMS) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS), which are available to almost every laboratory, have been used for the determination of the isotopic composition, using volatile chelates of the investigated metals (8), but suffer from poor precision, the sample pretreatment is tedious, and their application is limited by the availability of suitable chelating agents. In comparison, ICP-MS requires considerably less sample preparation and offers the potential for simultaneous determination of the isotopic ratios of several elements in (5,7,8,(50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55)(56). However, complete metabolic studies in humans have only been performed for the assessment of Fe bioavailability and incorporation into erythrocytes in children and pregnancy (57)(58)(59)(60), for the evaluation of Zn absorption in infants (61,62), and more recently, for the differential diagnosis of Wilson disease, reported later in this issue (63,64), and the evaluation of Ni toxicokinetics (65).…”

“…These considerations may limit at present the application of ICP-MS in routine clinical laboratories, but do not diminish the considerable potential offered by this technique for research in biomedicine. Reviews have appeared in the recent literature covering various aspects of the applications of ICP-MS in biomedicine (5)(6)(7)(8), but work in this field is progressing at a fast pace. Recently, as a further development of ICP-MS instrumentation, High Resolution-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometers (HR-ICP-MS) have become available (9), which offer higher resolution with little or no reduction of LODs, and thus the potential to overcome most of the polyatomic interferences affecting ICP-MS determinations in complex matrices.…”

Recent Developments in Trace Element Analysis in the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Diseases

“…Increasing interest is paid to the role of trace element species in health and disease, as the speciation of trace elements in complex media, such as blood, urine, and tissue homogenates, becomes achievable by means of advanced separation techniques (HPLC, capillary electrophoresis) coupled on-line with multielemental detection (35)(36)(37)(38). In the past, the dosage of relevant species such as hemoglobin, ferritin, and transferrin has proven more informative than the determination of total Fe.…”

Analytical plasma source mass spectrometry in biomedical research

“…Advances in ICP-MS for human nutrition and toxicology were described earlier [2] as a snapshot of the role played by the technique through 1992. Here its continued development and progress will be briefly reviewed.…”