Determination of 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) by HPLC method.

5-Aminolevulinic acid is at present most popular precursor of photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy and diagnostics. The effect of accumulation of PpIX induced by exogenous ALA is based on the avoidance of feedback control in the pathway of heme biosynthesis. For use ALA in medicine, development of analytical methods that will enable precise determination of content and purity is necessary. The ALA content is determined i. a. by titration with perchloric acid. Much greater problems are connected with purity determination by HPLC method. There are rather scarce literature data concerning purity determination of ALA by HPLC.