Abstract
We describe a procedure for gas-chromatographic determination of n-octanoic and n-decanoic acids in 100 microL of plasma from children with intractable epilepsy treated with medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) diet. With n-nonanoic acid as the internal standard, the extraction efficiencies for octanoic and decanoic acids were 98 and 105%, respectively. Within-run CVs for octanoic acid at 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 micrograms/0.1 mL were 8.8, 7.9, 8.5, 6.5, 4.3, and 5.7%, respectively. For decanoic acid at identical concentrations, the CVs were 10.0, 7.4, 4.9, 4.0, 2.6, and 3.5%, respectively. For 10 children on MCT diet (45.9% of calories supplied as MCT) the mean concentrations of octanoic and decanoic acids were 44.2 and 27.0 mg/L, respectively. Presence of relatively "high" quantities of these acids in plasma may contribute to seizure control when MCT diet is prescribed for intractable childhood epilepsy.
The medium chain triglyceride diet and intractable epilepsy.