Material and Methods Principle

Investigation of an enzymatic-spectrophotometric determination for lactic and pyruvic acid in blood has confirmed its suitability and reliability. The precision of both methods is high. No variability is encountered in the pyruvic acid analysis. Less than 5 % variation is found with the lactic acid analysis. The recovery in both pro-cedures approaches 100%. 1N11ANY clinical and experimental problems concerning anaerobic me-tabolism and the accumulation of an oxygen debt have recently been studied, using Huckabee’s concept of “excess lactate ” (1). Colon-metric methods have most often been used to measure pyruvic and lactic acid in blood (2, 3). The estimation of these two metabolites by an enzymatic analysis has advantages-e.g., specificity and ease of per-formance-that would make such methods more suitable t-han determi-nations based on colorimetry. The following study was undertaken to delineate the linearity, sensitivity, precision, reproducibility, and re-covery of an enzymatic-spectrophotometric analysis of pyruvic and lactic acid in whole blood