Measurement of titanium in hip-replacement patients by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy

BackgroundPatients with metal-on-metal hip replacements require testing for cobalt and chromium. There may also be a need to test for titanium, which is used in the construction of the femoral stem in total hip replacements. It is not possible to use quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry due to interferences.MethodsTitanium was measured using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy using the emission line at 336.1 nm and Y (internal standard) at 371.0 nm. Internal quality control materials were prepared for blood and serum and concentrations assigned using a sector field-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. A candidate whole blood certified reference material was also evaluated.ResultsThe method had detection and quantitation limits of 0.6 and 1.9 µg/L, respectively. The respective bias (%) and measurement uncertainty (U) (k = 2) were 3.3% and 2.0 µg/L (serum) and − 1.0% and 1.4 µg/L (whole blood). The respective repeatability and intermediate precision (%) were...