Monitor patients for prior and ongoing exposure to aluminum. Patients at risk include:

• Infants on parenteral fluids, particularly parenteral nutrition

• Burn patients through administration of intravenous albumin, particularly with coexisting renal failure

• Adult and pediatric patients with chronic renal failure who accumulate aluminum readily from medications and dialysate

• Adult parenteral nutrition patients (less so, recently)

• Patients with industrial exposure

Monitor dialysate and water to prepare dialysate to prevent aluminum toxicity in dialysis patients.

This test was developed and its performance characteristics determined by LabCorp. It has not been cleared or approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

1. Lauwerys RR, Hoet P, Industrial Chemical Exposure: Guidelines for Biological Monitoring, 2nd ed, Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers, 1993, 290.