Chafkin Julia E, O'Brien Joseph M, Medrano Fortunato N, Lee Hae Yeon, Yeager David S, Josephs Robert A
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA.
Department of Psychology, Yale-NUS, Singapore.
Compr Psychoneuroendocrinol. 2022 Apr 1;10:100132. doi: 10.1016/j.cpnec.2022.100132. eCollection 2022 May.
Methodological comparisons of hormone quantification techniques have repeatedly demonstrated that, in adults, enzyme immunoassay (EIA) inflates steroid hormone concentrations relative to mass spectrometry. However, methodological comparisons in adolescent samples remain rare, and few studies have examined how chemiluminescent immunoassay (CLIA), another popular immunoassay, compares to mass spectrometry. Additionally, no studies have examined how differences in analytical techniques may be affecting relationships between steroid hormone levels and outcomes of interest, such as psychopathology. This pre-registered analysis of an existing dataset measured salivary cortisol and testosterone using both CLIA and liquid chromatography dual mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in a repeated measures (516 samples) sample of 207 9th graders.
In aim 1, this study sought to expand on past findings by 1) measuring inflation of testosterone and cortisol by CLIA in a relatively large adolescent sample, and 2) showing that CLIA (like EIA) testosterone inflation was especially true in groups with low 'true' testosterone levels. In aim 2, this study sought to examine the impact of hormone quantification method on relationships between hormone levels and psychopathological measures (the Children's Depression Inventory, the Perceived Social Stress Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and the Anxious Avoidant and Negative Self Evaluation subscales of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents).
We found that CLIA, like EIA, inflated testosterone and cortisol levels and overestimated female testosterone resulting in suppressed sex differences in testosterone. We did not observe these same patterns when examining testosterone in individuals with differing levels of pubertal development. Results of psychopathology analyses demonstrated no significant method differences in hormone-psychopathology relationships.
Our findings show that CLIA introduces proportional bias in cortisol and testosterone in a manner that suppresses sex differences in testosterone. Steroid measurement method did not significantly moderate the relationship between hormones and psychopathology in our sample, though more work is needed to investigate this question in larger, clinical samples.
激素定量技术的方法学比较多次表明，在成年人中，相较于质谱分析法，酶免疫分析法（EIA）会使类固醇激素浓度虚高。然而，针对青少年样本的方法学比较仍然很少，而且几乎没有研究考察过另一种常用的免疫分析法——化学发光免疫分析法（CLIA）与质谱分析法相比情况如何。此外，尚无研究考察分析技术的差异可能如何影响类固醇激素水平与诸如精神病理学等相关结果之间的关系。这项对现有数据集的预先注册分析，在一个由207名九年级学生组成的重复测量样本（516个样本）中，使用CLIA和液相色谱串联质谱法（LC-MS/MS）测量了唾液皮质醇和睾酮。
在目标1中，本研究试图通过以下方式扩展以往的研究结果：1）在一个相对较大的青少年样本中测量CLIA导致的睾酮和皮质醇虚高情况；2）表明CLIA（与EIA一样）导致的睾酮虚高在“真实”睾酮水平较低的群体中尤为明显。在目标2中，本研究试图考察激素定量方法对激素水平与精神病理学测量指标（儿童抑郁量表、感知社会压力量表、加州大学洛杉矶分校孤独量表以及青少年社交焦虑量表的焦虑回避和消极自我评价子量表）之间关系的影响。
我们发现，与EIA一样，CLIA会使睾酮和皮质醇水平虚高，并高估女性睾酮水平，从而导致睾酮的性别差异被抑制。在检查不同青春期发育水平个体的睾酮时，我们没有观察到相同的模式。精神病理学分析结果表明，激素与精神病理学关系方面不存在显著的方法差异。
我们的研究结果表明，CLIA在皮质醇和睾酮测量中引入了比例偏差，这种偏差抑制了睾酮的性别差异。在我们的样本中，类固醇测量方法并未显著调节激素与精神病理学之间的关系，不过需要更多研究在更大的临床样本中探究这一问题。
