Falsely Elevated Testosterone Levels: Role of LC-MS/MS in Reducing Unnecessary Testing

This study emphasizes the necessity of confirming elevated testosterone levels detected by immunoassay with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy before pursuing more complex diagnostic evaluations.

The document concludes that using LC-MS/MS for measuring androgens is more accurate than older methods, but it needs careful validation and standardized references to be most effective.

In this case study, authors reported that a 43-year-old female patient initially showed persistently high testosterone levels due to immunoassay interference, later verified as normal using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), highlighting the need to consider assay artifacts in diagnosing hyperandrogenism without clinical signs.

This study found that LC-MS/MS is a more reliable method than immunoassays for measuring serum 17OHP and androgen levels in women with hyperandrogenism.

This study found that LC-MS/MS assays provided more reliable and precise steroid measurements in human serum compared to traditional immunoassays, particularly at lower concentrations.