Ion chromatographic determination of metals in biocompatibility testing

The increasing numbers of materials used in surgical implants require a wide spectrum of tests to evaluate their biocompatibility. The release of metals is an important additional feature for determining the suitability for clinical applications of biomaterials such as ceramics and metals. Due to the difficulty of performing time‐consuming experiments in vivo, one approach for rapidly determining the suitability of biomaterials and their interactions with the tissues with which they will come in contact is to perform in vitro tests, based on cell culture analysis, using solutions that reproduce the cleavage and binding capabilities of body fluids and tissues. The present work reports on the application of ion chromatography to the simultaneous determination of some metal ions in a few biologic media. Agar–Agar solution, “199 medium,” and betadine and Schiff's reagents were selected as some of the most representative biologic simulating solutions. A method is recommended for the pretreatment of the sample with minimal reagent addition since it is very rich in organic compounds and cannot be analyzed without pretreatment. The proposed procedure requires the sample to be subjected to oxidative UV photolysis for about 60 min in an UV digester at 85° ± 5°C, followed by the ion chromatographic determination. Lead (II), cadmium (II), iron (III), copper (II), nickel (II), zinc (II), and cobalt (II) simultaneously were determined at μg/L levels. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 50, 131–137, 2000.