I do not think that it will be easy to develop an extraction method
for female testosterone if you have limited facilities. We use an
ether extraction technique followed by freezing the serum layer in
dry ice/meths, and evaporation of the decanted ether layer. We then
perform an in house RIA on the dried extracts. This requires fume
cupboards, evaporators and relatively experienced staff. The assay
is also time consuming. I do not know whether solid phase extraction
has been tried for testosterone This may simplify things a little if
it works.
We have tried measuring the ether extracts on the Architect analyser
with little success. The main problem was the matrix used to take up
the dried extracts prior to analysis. We tried hormone free serum and
horse serum with little success. The obvious solution is to is to get
a large supply of the zero standard used in the kit to take up the
dried extract. This material is not always that easy to obtain but
we aim to evaluate this if /when we get some matrix.
Mr. John Kane
Clinical Biochemistry Dept
Hope Hospital
Salford
M6 8HD
Tel. 0161 787 4374
Fax. 0161 788 7443
Email [log in to unmask]
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