title: Routine laboratory investigation of urinary catecholamine metabolites in sick children.
abstract: Simple and rapid thin-layer chromatographic methods have been used to investigate the catecholamine metabolites present in the urine of sick children. A semi-quantitative method for 4-hydroxy-3-methoxy-mandelic acid (HMMA) has been devised and compared with the quantitative spectrophotometric procedure. The methods have been performed on both normal subjects and children with catecholamine-secreting tumours, without dietary restriction, and have led to a 50% reduction in the number of samples requiring laborious quantitative determination of HMMA excretion.
mesh_terms: D002395:Catecholamines / Q000378:metabolism / Q000652:urine*; D002648:Child; D002855:Chromatography, Thin Layer; D006801:Humans; D008722:Methods; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000652:urine; D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid / Q000652:urine
chemical_list: D002395:Catecholamines; D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid