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. 1980 Mar 1;21(1):55–61. doi: 10.1186/BF03546900

The Stability and Automatic Determination of Ketone Bodies in Blood Samples Taken in Field Conditions

Stabilitet och automatisk bestämning av ketonkroppar i blodprou tagna under fältförhållanden.

Jouko Työppönen 1,✉, Kauko Kauppinen 1
PMCID: PMC8317731  PMID: 7386330

Abstract

An automated, spectro-photometric determination of blood acetoacetate and β-hydroxybutyrate was developed with a Gilford 3500 autoanalyzer. The stability of ketone bodies was studied in different conditions. An immediate precipitation with 0.6 M perchloric acid and cooling the sample effectively prevent the loss of acetoacetate from samples during transport to the laboratory (at 4°C a 6 % loss of acetoacetate was noted during 24 h). Freezing the sample makes it practically stable (less than 2 % loss of acetoacetate per week during a study lasting 2 months). At room temperature (20°C) the sample’s acetoacetate was instable and disappeared with a rate of 6 % per h. β-hydroxybutyrate was stable in precipitated samples. Because the precipitation also retains the sample’s glucose, 3 main parameters for the indication of ketosis could be analyzed automatically from the same sample with a total capacity of 40 samples in 2½ h.

Keywords: acetoacetate, bovine ketosis, Gilford 3500 analyzer, glucose, β-hydroxybutyrate

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