Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Horm Cancer. 2011 Dec;2(6):324-32. doi: 10.1007/s12672-011-0099-x.
The ability to measure steroid hormone concentrations in blood and urine specimens is central to the diagnosis and proper treatment of adrenal diseases. The traditional approach has been to assay each steroid hormone, precursor, or metabolite using individual aliquots of serum, each with a separate immunoassay. For complex diseases, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia and adrenocortical cancer, in which the assay of several steroids is essential for management, this approach is time consuming and costly, in addition to using large amounts of serum. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry profiling of steroid metabolites in urine has been employed for many years but only in a small number of specialized laboratories and suffers from slow throughput. The advent of commercial high-performance liquid chromatography instruments coupled to tandem mass spectrometers offers the potential for medium- to high-throughput profiling of serum steroids using small quantities of sample. Here, we review the physical principles of mass spectrometry, the instrumentation used for these techniques, the terminology used in this field and applications to steroid analysis.
测定血液和尿液标本中类固醇激素浓度的能力是诊断和正确治疗肾上腺疾病的核心。传统方法是使用血清的各个等分试样，每个等分试样使用单独的免疫测定法来测定每种类固醇激素、前体或代谢物。对于复杂疾病，如先天性肾上腺皮质增生症和肾上腺皮质癌，为了进行管理，必须对几种类固醇进行检测，这种方法不仅耗时且昂贵，而且还需要使用大量的血清。多年来，尿液中类固醇代谢物的气相色谱/质谱分析已得到应用，但仅在少数专门实验室中进行，且检测速度较慢。商业高效液相色谱仪与串联质谱仪的结合为使用少量样品对血清类固醇进行中高通量分析提供了可能。在这里，我们回顾了质谱的物理原理、这些技术中使用的仪器、该领域中使用的术语以及类固醇分析的应用。
