EVALUATION OF CATECHOL AMINE LEVELS IN RENAL INSUFFICIENCY

The estimation of epinephrine (E) and norepi-nephrine (NE) in plasma and urine has become important as a procedure in physiological research and as an aid in the diagnosis of pheochromocy-toma. With the development of fluorometric pro-cedures the chemical estimation of E and NE in biological fluids and tissues was made possible. The fluorometric procedures used most com-monly are modifications of the trihydroxyindole method of Lund (1) and the ethylenediamine (EDA) condensation method of Weil-Malherbe and Bone (2, 3). The trihydroxyindole method is not sensitive enough to permit measurements of E and NE in small amounts of normal periph-eral plasma (1), and its practical usefulness is lim