Determination of alanine aminotransferase in human serum in an open-closed flow injection configuration

Open-closed flow injection systems allow the development of methods based on multidetection by using conventional detectors. The methods proposed here for the determination of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) utilize a photometric detector included in the closed circuit, which allows one to perform fixed-time and reaction-rate measurements whose sensitivity can be increased by using the sum of the analytical signals. The methods, with determination ranges between 1 and 500 U l −1 of ALT, feature sampling frequencies up to 60 h −1. Their application to serum samples provided excellent results, with recoveries between 95 and 106% and averaging at 99.9%.