Full automation of catecholamine metabolite determination by column switching and high-performance liquid chromatography

The urinary catecholamine metabolites, vanimandelic acid, homovanillic acid, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, were extracted on a silica-bonded strong-anion-exchanger cartridge (SAX) and then injected into an high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) system by column switching. Chromatography was performed on a reversed-phase analytical column with electrochemical detection. Full automation was obtained by coupling two devices: a solid-phase automatic sampler and intelligent autosampler. For each substance the recovery was greater than 95% and the coefficient of variation was ca. 3%; the analysis takes 11 min. Substance instability problems are overcome, because the samples are extracted and injected in rapid succession. The normal values and correlation with manual HPLC were established for a large number of samples.