The analysis of biochemical markers in body fluids

The analysis of the concentration of specific substances such as metabolites, hormones, enzymes and proteins plays an important role in medical diagnostics. Substances called biochemical markers allow fast and accurate diagnosis (e.g. myoglobin and troponin are the markers of myocardial ischemia).

Some of these substances are routinely determined in hospital diagnostic laboratories, but most of them can only be determined by highly specialized laboratories. Progress in the field of disease biomarkers in recent years necessitates a constant effort to develop and introduce new methods. Liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry is an analytical technique that assists the fast development of new methods for the determination of biochemical markers that are difficult to identify in a diagnostic laboratory, such as certain steroid hormones, derivatives of amino acids (catecholamines, metabolites of collagen - pyridinoline, hydroxyproline), or metabolites of vitamins.