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Technical Briefs |
1 Department of Medical Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biotechnology;
2 Department of Medicine, Surgery and Dental Science; and3
Institute of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy;
aaddress correspondence to this author at: Department of Medical Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Milan, Via Saldini 50, 20133 Milan, Italy; fax 39-250316040, e-mail giuliana.cighetti@unimi.it
| The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below. |
The formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), as a result of an imbalance of the oxidant/antioxidant system, and their reactivity toward various molecular targets lead to oxidative damage contributing to different human pathologies (1)(2). Nonneutralized ROS trigger the lipid peroxidation process of cell membranes, thus generating hydroperoxides (intermediate compounds) and malondialdehyde (MDA), the most abundant carbonyl-terminal molecule in the circulation. The direct in vivo detection of ROS is difficult because of their very short lifetimes; therefore, changes in hydroperoxide and/or MDA concentrations are often used as an indicator of oxidative stress in clinical laboratory settings (3). MDA exists in 2 forms in tissues and blood: free and bound to SH and/or NH2 groups of proteins, nucleic acids, and lipoproteins (4). Free MDA (F-MDA), the chemically active form, serves as an indicator of recent damage (4)(5), and the bound fraction excreted by urine is indicative of an older injury (6).
The analytical assay generally used to quantify MDA, based on detection of the product from the reaction between MDA and thiobarbituric acid (TBARS), measures only total MDA (T-MDA; free + bound) (4)(7). This method, although criticized for its low specificity, is often used in clinical laboratories despite its complexity. Thus, the commercial availability of a specific, simple, rapid, and low-cost assay to measure oxidative stress by assaying hydroperoxide derivatives would be useful in hospital laboratories.
The aim of the present study was to compare a commercial assay (D-ROMs TestTM; Diacron) for assessing oxidative stress in sera of healthy persons and critically ill patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) with an isotope-dilution gas chromatographymass spectrometry (ID-GC-MS) method (8), the most specific and sensitive method in
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