Simultaneous diagnostic method for phenylketonuria and galactosemia from dried blood spots using high-performance liquid chromatography-pulsed amperometric detection

We developed a simultaneous diagnostic method for phenylketonuria (PKU) and galactosemia through simultaneous determination of phenylalanine (Phe) and galactose (Gal) by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with pulsed amperometric detection (PAD). The intra- and inter-day precisions were <5.8%, with satisfactory mean recoveries (98.2–105%). For all PKU-positive samples, Phe levels were above the cut-off value (>30.0 mg/L), but Gal levels were nearly zero. For 77% of galactosemia-positive samples, Phe levels were above the cut-off value, but Gal levels were above the cut-off value (>80.0 mg/L) for all samples. Our HPLC-PAD method can reduce the false-positive rate of misdiagnosis for PKU and galactosemia.