Paper Title
Monitoring of Catecholamines in Blood Plasma of Patients with Pheochromocytoma

Abstract
Pheochromocytomas are rare, catecholamine-secreting tumors derived from chromaffin tissue of adrenal glands or extra-adrenal chromaffin cells (called paragangliomas). Most clinical symptoms (hypertension, rapid breathing or severe headache) are connected to the secretion of catecholamines. Monitoring of catecholamines concentration levels would help to detect pheochromocytoma in early stage of tumor growth. The aim of presented work was to develop a highly sensitive, selective, rapid and accurate analytical method for monitoring of catecholamines concentration levels in blood plasma samples obtained from patients with pheochromocytoma. Developed method consists of analytes separation from blood plasma by solid phase extraction (SPE) with molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) as a stationary phase, their chromatographic separation by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and detection by mass spectrometry (MS). All steps of developed method were optimized and validated. Thereafter the method was utilized for comparison of catecholamines levels in blood plasma samples from patients with pheochromocytoma before and after surgical removal of the tumor. Keywords - Pheochromocytoma, catecholamines, molecularly imprinted polymer, solid phase extraction, HPLC-MS