RESUMO
Serum iron concentration was done on 30 normal samples using both atomic absorption and standard colorimetric method. The atomic absorption method gave results significantly higher than that obtained by manual techniques [P<0.05]. Correlation study showed a significant positive correlation. For evaluation of the two techniques, both methods are highly precise although atomic absorption is more precise than the manual technique [C.V. equal 2.7 and 8.9% respectively]. Moreover both techniques were linear in a very wide range and atomic absorption was more sensitive than the manual one, the least detectable limits were 26 and 50 ug/dl respectively. As for interference study, hemolysis was found to interfere markedly with iron determination by atomic absorption while bilirubin or lipid have no significant effect on it. Finally we found that both techniques can be used perfectly for the determination of serum iron but the chemical method is still the cheapest and the more convenient one