Determination of urinary retinol and creatinine as an early sensitive marker of renal dysfunction

Abstract

Determination of urinary retinol, which is a new promising early biomarker of renal damage typically expressed in the clinical environment as retinol/creatinine ratio, is currently difficult to accomplish. We have developed and validated the new ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography method with UV and mass spectrometry detection for the separation and quantification of retinol and creatinine in human urine in a single run. The separation of these two substances with completely different physicochemical properties was achieved using a column packed with fluorinated stationary phase and acetonitrile and aqueous ammonium formate buffer as the mobile phases. The separation was completed within 4 min. Our new method involves very fast and simple sample preparation requiring small amount of sample matrix and solvents. Deuterium labeled internal standard was used for the more precise quantification. The method was tested with real-life samples using urine collected from patients suffering from breast, colorectal, head, and neck cancer.