Determination of chelated iron in the urine

A simplified wet-ashing technique is described for the determination of chelated iron in the urine, with special reference to DTPA-bound iron. The procedure dispenses with the need for quantitative transfer, and gives corresponding economy in time, labour, and glassware without loss of precision. The standard error of the mean estimate of a triplicate determination, using four reference standards, is ± 4 μg/100 ml; precision may be further increased by the use of a calibration curve based on many standards.