Evaluation of commercially available radioimmunoassays for the determination of luteinizing hormone in serum and urine. Application for the detection of endogenous rise of luteinizing hormone in a in vitro fertilization program.

Three commercially available RIA kits for serum and urinary LH were assessed for their usefulness to detect endogenous LH rise in patients receiving ovarian stimulation as part of an in vitro fertilization treatment for infertility. Prerequisites included a turn-around time of 5 hours for an assay of 100 tubes. The following parameters were evaluated: reproducibility of standard curve, sensitivity, precision profile, within- and between-assay precision, analytical drift, recovery and linearity. The Amerlex LH RIA kit was selected because of superior precision profiles, higher precision and better recovery tests.