An improved measurement of progesterone in saliva and clinical applications.

Measurement of progesterone in saliva offers several advantages when compared to assays of serum progesterone, especially when ovarian activity is being assessed. Most published methods for the determination of progesterone in saliva are based on assays developed in research centers, which employ "in-house" reagents that are critically dependent on supplies of highly selected antisera. In this report, the adaptation of a readily available commercial progesterone "kit", the Pantex Immunodirect Progesterone (125I) is described for the measurement of salivary progesterone. A single extraction step was added, however, to improve assay performance and to ensure that total salivary progesterone was measured.