Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Saliva samples offer the possibility to obtain stress-free non-invasive samples, also for home-testing, especially useful when blood collection is either undesirable or difficult.The aim of this work was to develop an LC–MS/MS method for the determination of clinically relevant steroid hormones cortisol, cortisone, 11-deoxycortisol, 21-deoxycortisol, 17OH-progesterone, aldosterone, corticosterone, deoxycorticosterone, betamethasone, dexamethasone, testosterone, androstenedione, DHEAS, DHEA and 17OH-pregnenolone. A special effort was made to adopt the method to neonatal population with respect to low sample volumes and multiplexing.

Results: Ten microliters were acceptable but 50 μl preferable sample volume for all the analytes. Cortisol, cortisone, aldosterone, 11-deoxycortisol, deoxycorticosterone, dexamethasone, betamethasone, 17OH-pregnenolone and DHEAS could be determined in as little as 2–5 μl saliva. Total analytical variation was <15%, except for 17OH-progesterone, deoxycorticosterone, 17OH-pregnenolone, 21-deoxycortisol, androstenedione, DHEA and betamethasone, that could only be determined semi-quantitatively or qualitatively. The minimum turnaround time is 3–4 h. Recovery from the best-performing sample collection swab SalivaBio ranged from 83 to 127%. Aldosterone, cortisone and DHEA were more stable in saliva compared to serum when stored at ambient temperature for one week. Corticosterone and 17OH-progesterone needed immediate freezing.

Conclusion: The non-invasiveness, small saliva volume requirement, on-swab stability and analytical performance make the method relevant for both research and diagnostics, above all in the setting of neonatal intensive care unit.