Measurement of lactate in whole human blood with near-infrared transmission spectroscopy

We have evaluated the potential of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as a technique for rapid analysis of lactate in whole blood. To test the NIRS technique, a comparison was made with a standard clinical method using whole blood samples taken from five exercising human subjects at three different stage of exercise. To expand lactate concentration within the physiological range, standard additions method was used to generate 45 unique data points. Spectra were collected over the 2050–2400 nm spectral range with a 1 mm optical path length quartz cell. Reference lactate concentrations in the samples were determined by enzymatic measurements. Estimates and calibration of the lactate concentration with NIRS was made using partial least squares (PLS) regression analysis and leave-N-out cross validation on second derivative spectra. Separate calibrations were determined from each of the subject samples and cumulative PRESS was used to determine the number of PLS factors in the final model. The results from the PLS model presented are generated from the five individual calibration coefficient vectors and provided a correlation coefficient of 0.978 and a standard error of cross validation of 0.65 mmol l−1 between the enzymatic assay and the NIRS technique. To study the parameters that impact the spectra baseline and the correlation between the calculated model and the data, referenced measurements of lactate against baseline spectrum were made for each individual. A correlation coefficient of 0.992 and a standard error of cross validation of 0.21 mmol l−1 were found. The results suggest that NIRS may provide a valuable tool to assess physiological status for both research and clinical needs.