Determination of serum retinol by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

A rapid, sensitive and specific high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination of serum levels of retinol in humans. A direct serum injection technique after deproteinisation was used to avoid lengthy pretreatment steps which can result in degradation of retinol during analysis. The column used was CLC-ODS, the mobile phase was acetonitrile-water and detection wavelength was 328 nm. Deterioration in column performance was not observed even after injection of 300 samples. The lower detection limit was 10 micrograms/l. On analyzing a serum pool six times, a C.V. of 0.7% was obtained. The method is quantitative, reproducible, rapid and highly accurate for routine analysis.