Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) measurements in cord blood.

Antibodies to dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) can be generated by coupling DHEA to carrier proteins. This report describes the use of antibodies to three different DHEA-protein complexes for the measurement of DHEA in serum and cord plasma. Each of the three antibodies produces an assay with equivalent results in serum from adults and older children. However, with cord plasma samples, two of the antibodies detected much more cross-reacting material than was detected with the third antibody. In order to determine the basis for this discrepancy, a pool of cord plasma was extracted in a manner similar to that used in the assay procedure. The steroids in the extract were separated by chromatography on a Sephadex LH-20 column and individual fractions were assayed for DHEA with each of the antibodies. There were several peaks of cross-reacting material present in cord blood that were not present in comparable amounts in serum from adults. These results indicate that assays for DHEA need to be separately validated with samples from adults and from infants.