Our steroid hormone profile provides considerably more information about the hormone status of an individual than can be gleaned from individual measurements.
Why profiling? A profile provides in tabular format a group of data, which may reveal traits or characteristics, which might not be gleaned from single data points seen in isolation.
Gas chromatography coupled with
unequivocal identification and
quantification of steroids in urine
via mass spectrometry (GC/MS)
has been the preferred approach to
profiling. In fact, it is this approach
which is used to detect illicit steroid
hormone use amongst athletes
including those participating in the
Olympics. However, this strategy
has largely been confined to
universities and medical schools,
owing to high equipment and
personnel costs associated with this
still rather sophisticated equipment
and methodology.
Striving to make state-of-the-art hormone profiling widely
available we offer research quality testing to the ever growing
community of health care professionals and their patients who recognize the importance of the delicate balance inherent in
steroid hormone production and metabolism.
It should be pointed out that urine testing is still considered to
be the "gold standard" upon which the performance of many
immunoassays is based. It is the immunoassays which are used
in routine clinical testing of individual hormones. A profile
using this latter approach would be prohibitively expensive
costing upwards of one thousand dollars. Thus, whenever three
or more hormones are of interest a complete profile becomes a
more cost-effective means of obtaining the desired results.
Steroid hormones in normal and pathophysiological states can be grouped into primary and secondary steroids. Primary steroids have recognized biological functions and include estradiol, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol and aldosterone. All of these are present in exceptionally low concentrations. This in turn presents significant obstacles to be overcome by the laboratory and is also one reason, amongst several others, that testing using saliva remains extremely controversial and not accepted by the vast majority of clinical scientists and physicians. Seconary hormones are those whose biological function is minor in comparison to the primary steroids and include estrone, estriol, and DHEA to name a few.
In any case, measurements of primary steroids either individually or in combination give little information on possible errors or imbalances in biosynthetic or catabolic pathways. Profiling affords a means of providing significant information on the metabolic pathways of steroid hormones and is an answer to some of the shortcomings associated with measurements of primary and/or secondary steroids only
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