Serum galactose determination with centrifugal analyzers.

I describe a rapid quantitative centrifugal analysis for galactose in blood. The technique involves galactose dehydrogenase. As compared to the manual (o-toluidine) method for galactose determination, analysis time (4 min 45 s on the GEMSAEC, 4 min 10 s on the CentificCHEM) and sample volume (5 microliter) were considerably reduced. Sample deproteinization is eliminated. A modified commercial kit was also tested. Results by the procedure correlate well with those by the more classical methods and analytical recovery is about 100%. The method is applied to the determination of galactose in intravenous galactose tolerance tests. Results of actual tests are reported.