[Chromatography of urinary amino-acid in bismuth encephalopathy (author's transl)]

The urinary excretion of amino-acid have been determined by ionic exchange chromatography for 10 cases of bismuth encephalopathy and for 15 normal controls. The ninhydrine positive constituant reported by Burns in 5 cases of encephalopathy has not been detected. We are thinking it may be related to the use of a rich amino-acid solution during perfusions. We did not find any significant difference between the urinary excretion of amino-acid average value to the two groups. We found an increase excretion when severe encephalopathy were observed. Separate analysis of individual amino-acid excretion showed the following results: i) average percent of tyrosine excretion is lower in controls as in encephalopathies; ii) among the different ratios tested only SER + THR)/TYR and VAL/TYR are different in the two groups.