Salivary cortisol determination: adaptation of a commercial serum cortisol kit.

The determination of cortisol levels in saliva offers a number of significant advantages as compared with plasma or serum measurements, and radioimmunoassay is the technique of choice because of the greater sensitivity required. To date, the assay of salivary cortisol has been limited to only a few centres employing 'in-house' reagents. We describe some simple modifications of a commercial kit, designed for the assay of cortisol in serum and urine, which allow direct and rapid determination of the steroid in saliva. These modifications enable any laboratory with access to a gamma counter to perform large numbers of salivary cortisol assays at relatively low cost.