There has been an increase of use of saliva as a diagnostic fluid in recent years. It offers many advantages compared to blood plasma and urine as it can be collected non-invasively and in a simple manner. One of the elements present in saliva is iodine. Iodine is needed for synthesis of thyroid hormones and the working of the thyroid gland. Iodine deficiency is still extremely common among our society, which is why many researchers are trying to find a better way of determining iodine levels in human bodies.
We used inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to determine iodine concentrations in saliva samples. Before analyzing the samples, we tested the effects of pH and the sample matrix. We used the internal standard method for the determination of iodine in saliva samples. We also compared two types of analyzers used in ICP-MS, the quadrupole and TOF analyzer.
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