Selenium testing

 Analysis of serum and liver for selenium requires 3 days of processing and is labor intensive.  With our existing equipment and personnel, we are unable to start and run selenium analyses on a daily basis.  Starting, immediately, we will save frozen samples for selenium analysis and begin the procedure on Tuesdays with the goal of reporting the results of those analyses on Friday of each week.  Samples which arrive after Tuesday will be held until the following Tuesday to begin analysis.

Serum for vitamin E and selenium should be collected in plain red-top tubes.  Do not use clot separator tubes as the separator gel interferes with the analysis.  The minimum amount of serum for running both tests is 3.5 ml.  For accurate vitamin E analysis, it is important that the serum not be hemolyzed.  If the serum appears at all pink to red, it is likely that significant degradation of vitamin E has occurred. A "golf ball" size piece of liver is enough for both tests

.Dr. Steve Hooser, Head of Toxicology