Rapid and sensitive headspace gas chromatographic method for cyanide determination in whole blood

We reported a simple and rapid headspace (HS) gas chromatographic (GC) assay for the determination of cyanide in human whole blood obtained from both cadaveric and intoxicated subjects. The poison was extracted from whole blood samples by HS technique after 10 min incubation at 80°C with a HCl (1N) acidic solution supplemented with 30 g L^?1 of sodium chloride and 10 mg L^?1 of isopropanol as internal standard. A SGE WAX capillary column (30 m × 0.32 mm ID × 0.5 µm df) was used. The Flame Ionization Detector (FID) was set at 250°C. The detection and the quantification limits were 0.02 and 0.2 mg L^?1, respectively. In the within-day study, the coefficients of variation for three different whole blood cyanide concentrations varied between 3.2 and 6.5%, whereas those in the day-to-day study varied between 4.8 and 6.3%. The assay was performed in less than 20 min per sample, which appears to be suitable for emergency toxicological tasks involved in diagnosis of cyanide poisoning.