Determination of thiodiacetic acid in urine of people exposed to vinyl chloride by analytical capillary isotachophoresis

Abstract A method is introduced for the determination of thiodiacetic acid in urine by analytical capillary isotachophoresis with colunm coupling. Thiodiacetic acid is one of the final metabolites of carcinogenic vinyl chloride and appears at increased levels in the urine of people exposed to vinyl chloride vapours. The method enables the direct analysis of samples of 10 μl of urine without any pretreatment in about 45 min. The lowest detectable concentration of thiodiacetic acid was about 6 × 10 −6 mol/liter and the reproducibility of the analyses in the range of 2 ‐ 15 × 10 −5 mol. per liter was about 3 rel. %.