ALUMINUM DETERMINATION IN THE SKIN OF PATIENTS WITH AND WITHOUT END-STAGE RENAL-FAILURE

Aluminium (Al) concentration in the skin was determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry to look for a correlation between Al exposure and skin content in patients with end-stage renal failure. Skin Al concentrations were higher in dialyzed patients than in the nondialyzed group (1.02 +/- 0.30 vs. 0.26 +/- 0.10-mu-g/g; p < 0.001). Moreover, in the dialyzed group, the patients treated for more than 100 months had a higher concentration of Al in the skin than the others (1.20 +/- 0.26 vs. 0.80 +/- 0.18-mu-g/g; p < 0.05). Al skin content correlated better with the deferoxamine infusion test (DIT) than with Al blood plasma concentration. In conclusion, our data confirm that the DIT is a valuable tool for the evaluation of body Al content.