Measurement of Trace Amounts of Inert Gases in Blood by Gas Chromatography

Abstract

Although the physical characteristics of biologically inert* gases make them uniquely suitable for a variety of biomedical studies, limitations of methods for quantitating trace amounts of the gases in blood, until recently, have made it feasible to employ only those agents having commercially available radioisotopes (e.g., Kr⁸⁵ and Xe¹³³). Of particular interest are gases that possess extremely low solubilities in blood, because these gases tend to be excreted quantitatively during a single passage through the lungs and recirculate negligibly when introduced into the blood stream or a specific body tissue. The use of gas chromatography for the analysis of trace amounts of blood gases is a logical extension of the major advances in chromatographic blood gas analysis that have occurred in recent years and have been reviewed so excellently in an earlier volume of this series by Albers and Farhi [*]. These authors covered methods for extraction of gases from blood, injection of the extracted gases into the Chromatograph carrier gas stream, and specific analyses for CO₂,O₂, N₂, CO, and several anesthetic and toxic gases.