title: Evaluation of an ion-selective electrolyte analyzer: Microlyte 6.
abstract: Microlyte 6 (Kone, Finland) is an ion-selective analyzer designed to measure simultaneously the concentration of six important electrolyte parameters--potassium, sodium, chloride, ionized calcium, ionized magnesium and pH in whole blood, serum and plasma. Two values are obtained in analyzing the ionized fractions of magnesium and calcium--one at the actual pH and another at a recalculated measurement for pH = 7.4. Direct determination of ionized calcium and ionized magnesium simultaneously with that of the other electrolytes is of great clinical significance. It is only recently that ion-selective analysis of ionized magnesium has been proposed. The analytical reliability of the results and the operational characteristics of the Microlyte 6 ion-selective analyzer were evaluated for approximately one year. The coefficient of variation of the results in the reference and pathological range was 0.49%-2.23%, and 0.68%-4.42% for the within-run and between-run series, respectively. The inaccuracy of the results expressed by d% was from -4.23% to +4.06%. The comparative evaluation of the results for potassium, sodium, chloride, and ionized calcium between Microlyte-6 and the clinical chemistry analyzer Dynamic (Kone) showed a high correlation (correlation coefficient in the range 0.9868-0.9970). The correlation between the results for the ionized fraction and those obtained for total magnesium was consistent with that generally given in the literature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory, University of Medicine, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Markova
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sirakova
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsvetkova
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nikolov
mesh_terms: D002624:Chemistry, Clinical / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004566:Electrodes; D004573:Electrolytes / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D012016:Reference Values
chemical_list: D004573:Electrolytes