title: Reference values for salivary testosterone in adolescent boys and girls determined using Isotope-Dilution Liquid-Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry (ID-LC-MS/MS).
abstract: The measurement of testosterone in saliva is an attractive alternative to serum analysis due to the simple and non-invasive sample collection. In children and adolescents salivary testosterone is mainly measured to investigate whether puberty has started or not. This study aimed to establish reference values for salivary testosterone during puberty in boys and girls. We measured salivary testosterone using ID-LC-MS/MS in a cohort of 131 girls and 123 boys of whom each had salivary testosterone measured at two time points during puberty. Salivary testosterone concentrations start to increase with the start of puberty around eight years and continuously increase up to adult concentrations in the following ten years. Reference values were calculated using the Lambda-Mu-Sigma (LMS)-curve fitting method and provided per year from 8 to 26 years of age in boys and girls. These reference ranges may help clinicians and researchers to interpret salivary testosterone results in both individual patients and study subjects.
authors.affiliation: Endocrine Laboratory, Department of Clinical Chemistry, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rahel M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Büttler
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jiska S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Peper
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Eveline A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Crone
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Chemistry & Haematology, University Medical Center, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Eef G W
authors.initials: EGW
authors.lastname: Lentjes
authors.affiliation: Endocrine Laboratory, Department of Clinical Chemistry, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marinus A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Blankenstein
authors.affiliation: Endocrine Laboratory, Department of Clinical Chemistry, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Electronic address: a.heijboer@vumc.nl.
authors.forename: Annemieke C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Heijboer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D057230:Limit of Detection; D008297:Male; D012016:Reference Values; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry*; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry / Q000592:standards*; D013739:Testosterone / Q000032:analysis*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D013739:Testosterone
keywords: Adolescents; Reference values; Salivary testosterone