Routine reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic measurement of urinary vanillylmandelic acid in patients with neural crest tumors.

A rapid and simple reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic procedure for the determination of vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) is described. This method was applied in the determination of the VMA content in urine from normal subjects and patients with neural crest lesions. Sample preparation is minimal and the analysis is short (20 min) and reproducible. The sensitivity of the UV detection is in the ng range. By this technique, fourteen adult control subjects were found to excrete a mean of 2.86 microgram VMA per mg creatinine, whereas twelve patients with pheochromocytoma excreted a mean of 15.7 microgram VMA per mg creatinine.