a specific, sensitive, and one-step extraction radioimmunoassay of testosterone for clinical diagnosis

testosterone was measured using antibodies raised against testosterone ii b-carboxymethyl ether bovine serum albmin (t-iib-cme-bsa) and testosterone 3- o-carboxymethyl oxime-bsa as immunogen. the antibody produced in this study exhibits minimal cross reactivity with the structurally related steroids specially 5 dihydrotestosterone (5 dhd. this allows to ommit the clean up step and measure testosterone in female serum samples accurately with a high sensitivity, precision, and specificity. the coefficent of variation (cy), standard deviation (sd) and standard error of mean (se) were all in acceptable ranges. antibody-bound and free steroids were separated by addition of dextran coated charcoal. the method was applied to a set of clinical samples, the results of which are discussed in this communication. the assay was compared with the available imported kits using 125 i as tracer. the correlation coefficient obtained is calcualted to be r= 0.96, showing that the results obtained by these two methods are fully comparable and the assay may be replaced with the similar preparations imported from abroad.