A radioimmunoassay for serum dehydroepiandrosterone.

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfate ester, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) are the major adrenal C19 steroids in man. Concerning DHEAS many extensive studies have been reported using Zimmerman reaction and gas-liquid chromatography. Only a few papers, however, have appeared concerning DHEA. One of the causes of minute amount of information about DHEA was the complicated assay procedure such as double isotope derivative technique. Recently the advent of a sensitive radioimmunoassay has made it possible to measure steroid hormones easily. Nieschlag et al. (1972) published a radioimmunoassay for DHEA and DHEAS and we described a radioimmunoassay for serum DHEAS in a previous paper (Sekihara et al. 1972). We further developed a radioimmunoassay for serum DHEA by using the same antiserum. The present paper describes the results.