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Endocrine Abstracts (2014) 35 S26.3 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.35.S26.3

ECE2014 Symposia Pitfalls in hormone measurement (3 abstracts)

Advantages in the measurement of steroid hormones

Angela E Taylor , Donna M ONeil & Wiebke Arlt


Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.


Mass spectrometry has been used to measure steroids for more than 40 years, but has gained popularity within the endocrine field in the last 15+ years. This is mainly due to technological advances that facilitated the development of high throughput methods.

Historically, steroids were measured by crude techniques such as thin layer chromatography (TLC) and later by the more sophisticated RIA. The problems with these techniques include:

i. Limited specificity where two or more steroids can be confused as they have a similar retention times.

ii. inaccurate quantitation.

iii. poor reproducibility.

iv. inability to readily identify unknown analytes.

v. low throughput methods, TLC can be extremely time-consuming as can RIA unless automated.

Mass spectrometry has allowed the endocrinologist access to a variety of techniques which produces steroid data which is specific, sensitive, quantitative, and high-throughput.

This lecture will discuss the advantages and problems of steroid analysis by mass spectrometry, focussing on two major approaches, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS–MS). GC/MS is an excellent discovery tool to explore the entirety of the steroid metabolome and several examples of the use of this method by our group will be provided. LC/MS–MS provides a high-throughput platform in addition to highly specific and sensitive determination of single steroids in the routine laboratory, and also allows for determination of groups of steroids. This will be illustrated by examples of its use in the context of adrenal and gonadal disorders.

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