Creatinine in human serum was separated in a fused-silica capillary with H3PO4 (75 mmol/L, pH 2.5) as BGE, followed by UV detection at 200 nm. Serum with methylimidazole-added as internal standard was deproteinized with acetonitrile and the supernatant, after dilution with water was injected at pressure mode. Creatinine and methylimidazole were baseline-resolved in 6.5 min. Linearity in the 0-880 mumol/L range gave an r(2) greater than or equal to 0.998, recovery was 102 +/- 2.8% (n = 6). Enzymatic breakdown with creatininase confirmed that serum does not interfere. The within-day and between-days coefficient of variation (CV) were less than or equal to 2.16 and 2.7%, respectively. The accuracy, determined for lyophilized samples by isotope dilution gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was less than or equal to +/- 2.0%. The results were compared with HPLC for 32 lyophilized samples and on 27 serum pools. Capillary electrophoresis, rapid and inexpensive, seems a promising alternative to high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for creatinine determination in human serum.