A simple, rapid and specific chemiluminescence (CL) method for the determination of glutathione has been developed. The method is based on the enhanced CL of the reaction between Ru(phen)(3)(2+) (phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) and KMnO4 by glutathione in HCl medium. Under the optimum conditions, the response is linearly proportional to the concentration of glutathione between 1.5 x 10(-7) and 1.0 x 10(-5) mol L-1. The dection limit for glutathione (5.8 x 10(-8) mol L-1) is about 10 and 200 times better than those of the spectrophotometric method using Ellman regent and the Lucigenin - CL method, respectively. The final procedure allows the determination of glutathione in human serum with recoveries of 92%-108%. A satisfactory agreement was obtained with a mean relative difference of 2.5% compared to the HPLC method.