Practical Application of Biogenic Amine Profiles for the Diagnosis of Patients with Ischemic Stroke.

BACKGROUND: Ischemic stroke (IS) is still one of the major issues in medicine. Still, early diagnosis and misdiagnosis remain the main barriers for proper patient treatment and follow-up. Exploring new potential diagnostic biomarkers for IS is relevant to decrease patient morbidity and the occurrence of poststroke diseases. Biomedical analysis could bring new light to the background of IS and-in such a way-propose new bioanalytical tools for the early diagnosis, prognostication, and monitoring of IS.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This research aimed to present a discussion on the employment of biogenic amines (BAs), as well as their precursory amino acids and main metabolites, as a new panel of biomarkers for IS. Preliminary patient data were presented and the patients were described with respect to their clinical history and examination records, as well as scientific data gained from the liquid extraction-capillary electrophoresis determination of BAs in the patients' urine samples.

RESULTS: The results showed the potential of BA screening using the developed sample preparation and analysis methods in urine during IS, and this will be further studied on a more numerous group of patients with IS to reveal the usefulness of BAs as a new panel of biomarkers for early IS diagnosis and prognostication.

CONCLUSIONS: To our best knowledge, this methodology for the first time has been used for the simultaneous analysis of multiple small molecular biomarkers. In addition, the factors that might influence the determination of BAs in real samples were pointed out.