Determination of Homovanilic Acid in Human Urine by Weak Anion-Exchange Hypercrosslinked Polymer Resin-Solid Phase Extraction-High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Ultraviolet Detection Method

A solid phase extraction-high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection (SPE-HPLC-UV) method was developed for the determination of homovanilic acid (HVA) in human urine. First, a weak anion-exchange hypercrosslinked polymer resin (HXLPP-WAX), whose adsorption performance was investigated, was synthesized as SPE packing material. And then the urinary HVA was selectively absorbed on this sorbent. After elution, the HVA was analyzed on a C18 column with the mobile phase of methanol and aqueous acetic acid (15:85, V/V) at detection wavelength of 280 nm. The method validation results demonstrate that this method has a good linearity in the HVA concentration ranging from 2.26 to 289 mg L−1 and a limit of detection of 0.45 mg L−1. The average recoveries were above 90% and the RSD values were lower than 4.2%. The method was successfully applied to determine the HVA contents ranging from 1.55 to 6.79 mg L−1 in eight healthy human urine samples. The results showed that the proposed method was highly selective, sensitive, accurate, and reliable.