Oxidative stress tests: overview on reliability and use

Monitoring oxidative stress in humans is achieved by assaying products of oxidative damage or by investigating the po- tential of an organism, tissue or body fluids to withstand further oxidation. Unfortunately, there is little consensus concerning the selec- tion of parameters of oxidative stress or an- tioxidant state to be determined in defined pa- tients or diseases. This is not only due to the uncertainty wheter or not a certain parameter is playing a causative role. Moreover, the methods of determination described in the lit- erature represent very different levels of ana- lytical practicability, costs, and quality. Gener- ally accepted reference ranges and interpreta- tions of pathological situations are lacking as well as control materials. At present, the situa- tion is changing dramatically and sophisticat- ed methods like HPLC (High Performance Liq- uid Chromatography) and immunochemical de- terminations have become more and more common standard.