Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The 1 mg overnight dexamethasone suppression test (ONDST) is recommended for the differential diagnosis of Cushing’s syndrome and the investigation of adrenal incidentalomas. However, diagnostic performance of the test relies on accurate methods to quantitate cortisol in serum. Although the variable performance of serum cortisol immunoassays has been well-documented, little has been published on their performance following the ONDST.Aims...

Background: Development of multi-steroid profiling allows comprehensive investigation into the different branches of steroid metabolism. Immunoassays only allow analysis of a single steroid per assay and suffer from problems with specificity due to cross reactivity of similar steroids. Liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry has the specificity to analyse multiple steroids in a single experiment and the dynamic range to quantify steroids at high concentrations such as those ob...

Background: Excess testosterone in PCOS is accompanied by increased levels of other ovarian and adrenal androgens and precursors. Recently, 11-oxygenated adrenal androgens have been postulated as major components of the circulating androgen pool in PCOS. Obesity is strictly connected with androgen excess and with the derangement of hormone circadian rhythmicity. To date, it has not been clarified whether hyperandrogenism in PCOS, either complicated by obesity or not, is accomp...

Background: Symptoms of hyperandrogenism are common in patients with Cushing’s disease (CD), but they cannot be sufficiently explained by measured concentrations of circulating androgens. In this study we analyzed the contribution of 11-oxygenated (11o×C19) androgens to hyperandrogenemia in female patients with CD as well as the influence of treatment with steroidogenesis inhibitors osilodrostat and metyrapone on 11o×C19 and classic androgens.<p class="abste...

Objective: Quantify classic and 11-oxygenated androgens in serum and saliva and determine variations across age, sex, body mass index (BMI), menstruation and hormonal contraception use.Methods: Morning serum samples were collected from 292 healthy volunteers (125 men, 22-95 years; 167 women, 21-91 years). Morning saliva was collected from 83 healthy volunteers (51 women, 32 men). 25 individuals (12 women, 13 men) also collected a 7-timepoint diurnal sali...

Context11-oxygenated C19 steroids have recently gained attention as markers of androgen control in congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) due to 21hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD). However, they have not yet been systematically investigated in the context of different glucocorticoid (GC) replacement regimens and in particular not in patients receiving new modified-release formulations.MethodsCross-sectional singl...

BackgroundStandard glucocorticoid (GC) therapy in classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD-CAH) is often inadequate in controlling adrenal androgen excess, leading to GC over-exposure and poor health outcomes. A novel modified-release formulation of hydrocortisone (MR-HC, Chronocort® Diurnal Ltd. UK) has been shown to improve circulating adrenal androgen excess in 21-OHD-CAH. We investigated whether saliva and ...

Introduction: Gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is the gold standard method for urinary steroid profiling. However, GC-MS requires chemical derivatisation, long run times, is labour intensive, expensive, and unsuitable for rapid multi-sample analysis, limiting its use in routine clinical practice. GC-MS urinary steroid metabolomics, the combination of steroid profiling and machine learning (Generalized Matrix Learning Vector Quantization) was shown to have superior ...

Background: LC-MS/MS is replacing immunoassays for serum steroid measurement in clinical labs worldwide. The intrinsic high specificity of LC-MS/MS is supposed to guarantee accurate quantitation, however, differences in pre-analytical and analytical procedures, and overall performance may influence the result. A few studies so far investigated the reproducibility among different LC-MS/MS assays for sex steroids. No data are available for adrenal steroids.<p class="abstext"...

Background: LC-MS/MS is recommended for accurately measuring circulating steroids. However, laboratories using LC-MS/MS adopt various pre-analytical and analytical strategies, and little is known about comparability of results. Whether different blood derivatives impact LC-MS/MS measurements is unclear, and the benefit of unifying the calibration system among laboratories was not tested.Aim: Comparisons of LC-MS/MS measurements of circulating aldosterone...