Viewpoint Atomic spectrometry and trends in clinical laboratory medicine ☆ Patrick J. Parsons a,b, ⁎ , Fernando Barbosa Jr. c a Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, PO Box 509, Albany, NY 12201-0509, USA b Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, The University at Albany, Albany, NY 12201, USA c Departamento de Análises Clínicas, Toxicológicas e Bromatológicas, Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas de Ribeirão Preto-USP, Av do Café, s/n, Ribeirão Preto SP, 14040-903, Brazil Received 2 March 2007; accepted 5 March 2007 Available online 16 March 2007 Abstract Increasing numbers of clinical laboratories are transitioning away from flame and electrothermal AAS methods to those based on ICP-MS. Still, for many laboratories, the choice of instrumentation is based upon (a) the element(s) to be determined, (b) the matrix/matrices to be analyzed, and (c) the expected concentration(s) of the analytes in the matrix. Most clinical laboratories specialize in measuring Se, Zn, Cu, and Al in serum, and/or Pb, Cd, Hg, As, and Cr in blood and/or urine, while other trace elements (e.g., Pt, Au etc.) are measured for therapeutic purposes. Quantitative measurement of elemental species is becoming more widely accepted for nutritional and/or toxicological screening purposes, and ICP-MS interfaced with separation techniques, such as liquid chromatography or capillary electrophoresis, offers the advantage of on-line species determination coupled with very low detection limits. Polyatomic interferences for some key elements such as Se, As, and Cr require instrumentation equipped with dynamic reaction cell or collision cell technologies, or might even necessitate the use of sector field ICP-MS, to assure accurate results. Nonetheless, whatever analytical method is selected for the task, careful consideration must be given both to specimen collection procedures and to the control of pre-analytical variables. Finally, all methods benefit from access to reliable certified reference materials (CRMs). While a variety of reference materials (RMs) are available for trace element measurements in clinical matrices, not all can be classified as CRMs. The major metrological organizations (e.g., NIST, IRMM, NIES) provide a limited number of clinical CRMs, however, secondary reference materials are readily available from commercial organizations and organizers of external quality assessment schemes. © 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V. Keywords: Atomic spectrometry; Clinical laboratory medicine; AAS; ICP-MS; Speciation Contents 1. Introduction .............................................................. 993 2. Biomonitoring for essential and toxic elements ............................................ 993 3. Atomic spectrometry in clinical laboratory medicine (overview) ................................... 994 4. New trends in clinical laboratory medicine for trace element analysis ................................ 995 5. Determination of trace element species in clinical matrices ...................................... 997 6. CRMs, RMs, and quality control materials (QCMs) ......................................... 999 7. Role of atomic spectrometry in external quality assessment schemes for trace elements in clinical matrices ............ 1000 8. Future role of atomic spectrometry in clinical laboratories ..................................... 1000 Spectrochimica Acta Part B 62 (2007) 992 – 1003 www.elsevier.com/locate/sab ☆ This paper was presented at the 9th Rio Symposium on Atomic Spectrometry, held in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, 5–10 November 2006, and is published in the special issue of Spectrochimica Acta Part B, dedicated to that conference. ⁎ Corresponding author. Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, PO Box 509, Albany, NY 12201-0509, USA. Tel.: +1 518 474 5475; fax: +1 518 473 7586. E-mail address: patrick.parsons@wadsworth.org (P.J. Parsons). 0584-8547/$ - see front matter © 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.sab.2007.03.007