Determination of catecholamines in tissue and body fluids using microbore HPLC with amperometric detection.

Performance of microbore reverse phase HPLC coupled with amperometric detection is detailed for the analysis of catecholamines in small tissue samples and human blood plasma and cerebrospinal fluid. Extraction procedures for pre-concentration and clean-up of these samples are described. Marked signal enhancement is observed due to the smaller column volume as well as the increased coulometric yield which results from the lower flow rates used with this technique. Detection limits of 0.2 to 0.5 picograms are obtained allowing analysis of catecholamines in extremely small tissue samples or small volumes of cerebrospinal fluid or plasma.