A New Screening Test for Catecholamines Presence in The Urine of Patients

Abstract

The time required for the disappearance of the white spots produced by aninjection of catecholamines containing urine sample into Siamese fighting fish was used as a screening test as an early diagnosis of patients having catecholaminessecreting tumour. The urinary catecholaminestest using the fish has previously been reported by Songkittiguna. ⁽¹⁾The time required for the disappearance of the white spots produced by the injection into the fish with the morning urine samples obtained from the patients under 12 years (n=3.2) was not statistically different from the patients over 12 years (n= 16) (p>O. 05). In addition, the white spots produced by both the patients over 12 years and the all age (ten days to 70 years) did not differ significantly fromeach other (p>0.05) (n= 16 and 48, respectively). Interestingly ,the disappearance time of the white spots produced by the injection of the urine samples from a certain group of patients having catecholamine secreting tumour (under 12 years, (n= 12)), were markedly longer and highly significant different from the previous group (p<O. 001 ).