title: Application of ICP-OES to the determination of barium in blood and urine in clinical and forensic analysis.
abstract: Exposure to barium (Ba) mostly occurs in the workplace or from drinking water, but it may sometimes be due to accidental or intentional intoxication. This paper presents a reliable, sensitive method for the determination of Ba in blood and urine: inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) after microwave digestion of samples. The overall procedure was checked using Seronorm Whole Blood L-2, Trace Elements Urine and spiked blood and urine samples (0.5-10 µg/mL of Ba). The accuracy of the whole procedure (relative error) was 4% (blood) and 7% (urine); the recovery was 76-104% (blood) and 85-101% (urine). The limits of detection and quantification (Ba λ = 455.403 nm) were 0.11 and 0.4 µg/L of Ba, respectively; precision (relative standard deviation) was below 6% at the level of 15 µg/L of Ba for blood. This method was applied to a case of the poisoning of a man who had been exposed at the workplace for over two years to powdered BaCO3, and who suffered from paralysis and heart disorders. The concentrations of Ba, in μg/L, were 160 (blood), 460 (serum) and 1,458 (urine) upon his admission to the hospital, and 6.1 (blood) and 4.9 (urine) after 11 months (reference values: 3.34 ± 2.20 µg/L of Ba for blood and 4.43 ± 4.60 µg/L of Ba for urine).
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forensic Research, Krakow, Poland. tlech@ies.krakow.pl
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lech
mesh_terms: D001464:Barium / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008872:Microwaves; D011044:Poland; D012016:Reference Values; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D014131:Trace Elements / Q000097:blood / Q000652:urine
chemical_list: D014131:Trace Elements; D001464:Barium