Abstract
Quantitative determination of catecholamines and their O-methyl metabolites plays an important role in the diagnosis of pheochromocytoma (PHEO) - adrenal medulla tumour. This kind of tumour synthesizes, stocks, metabolizes and mostly secretes catecholamines.
For this reason it is possible to use elevated concentrations of catecholamines and their metabolic products from plasma and urine as diagnostic markers of this tumour. Determination of metanephrines is often preferred against determination of catecholamines regarding the diagnosis of PHEO.
Tumour cells produce free metanephrines continuously and irrespective of the release of catecholamines. The project aims to develop a new kit for the determination of plasma metanephrines.
Solid phase extraction (SPE) was used for the pre-treatment of plasma samples. The determination was performed by high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (HPLC-ED).