J RYKL¹, S MOREAUX<sup>2

1</sup>Shimadzu Schweiz GmbH, ²Shimadzu Europe

Accurate steroid measurement is essential to diagnose many disorders like sexual differentiation or gonadal function. Steroid metabolism is also important to study for many diseases (e.g. congenital adrenal hyperplasia, Cushing’s disease, primary aldosteronism, endometriosis …). Furthermore, since steroid metabolism is regulated by several mechanisms, a panel analysis may be of great advantage to get a complete picture or fingerprint. Method based on immunoassays suffer from a lack of specificity, throughput and cannot be applied to multiple steroids in one sample. The last point is particularly important when only low sample volume are available like in pediatric diagnosis. In regard to these requirements, LC-MS/MS is gaining attention for steroid analysis since it offers specificity (LC separation of steroids and their conjugates), precision, sensitivity, low sample volume, automation and high throughput and profiling.
A simultaneous highly sensitive analysis method for 15 steroids by UHPLC-MS/MS was developed to support research or clinical studies.
A high sensitivity in the range of pg/mL plasma was reached thus enabling the analysis of low sample volumes or deficiency disease levels.