Cerebrospinal fluid concentration and urinary excretion of cyclic adenosine-3', 5'-monophosphate in various diseases of children.

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentration and urinary excretion of cyclic adenosine-3',5'-monophosphate(cAMP) were measured in children aged from 3 days to 15 years by the protein-binding method of Gilman (1970). The mean CSF cAMP concentration (22.4 plus or minus 0.6 (S.E.) nmol/l) of 24 "healthy" children tended to be lower (P less then 0.2) than that of adult patients who revealed no pathological findings on clinical examination. No difference in the results was foung between the sexes. High cAMP concentrations were found in CSF of children suffering from cerebellar glioma, hypothalamic precocious puberty, bacterial meningitis, or Cushing's disease. The urinary excretion of cAMP varied from 0.2 to 5.3 in "healthy" and from 1.3 to 7.6 mumol/24 hrs in diseased children. Two children with pheochromocytoma showed a striking decrease in the rate of urinary excretion of the nucleotide after surgical treatment.