Abstract
Incomplete saponification of cholesterol esters causes a systematic error in cholesterol measurement by the Abell-Kendall method. The saponification of cholesterol esters; linoleate, oleate, palmitate, arachidonate and stearate, which occupy >1% of all choresterol esters in serum was examined by high performance liquid chromatgraphy to clarify the condition of complete (>99.9%) saponification. The cholesterol esters corresponding to 0.8% of total cholesterol remained unsaponified after 60 min at 37°C but 99.9 % were saponified after 90 min.
