Urinary excretion of immunoreactive vasopressin in prepubertal children. Lack of correlation with urinary excretion of immunoreactive neurophysins.

The excretion of immunoreactive vasopressin (AVP) and neurophysins was determined in 24 h urine samples from 62 normal healthy children of various ages. Five groups of children were selected: group I (n = 7, aged 2 to 3 years), group II (n = 13, aged 3 to 5 years), group III (n = 16, aged 5 to 7 years), group IV (n = 16, aged 7 to 9 years), group V (n = 10, aged 9 to 11 years). The method used for urine AVP determination consisted of an extraction using a procedure slightly modified from that of Miller and Moses [14], coupled to a radioimmunoassay. The following urinary AVP excretions were obtained: group I mean: 70.8 ng/m2/24 h range: 51-150 ng, group II mean: 54.1 ng/m2/24 h range: 17-113.6 ng, group III mean: 55.2 ng/m2/24 h range: 18-106 ng, group IV mean: 39.9 ng/m2/24 h range: 11.7-77.9 ng, group V mean: 39.4 ng/m2/24 h range: 25.8-64 ng. The excretion of AVP was significantly correlated to the daily urinary osmolality (P less than 0.001) whether expressed in ng/24 h (r = 0.41) o rin ng/m2/24 h (r = 0.4.7). Neurophysins excretion ranging between 7 and 1,278 ng/24H is too variable to allow interpretation.