ESPE Abstracts

Though presenting the analytical techniques with a more longstanding tradition, mass spectrometry based methods had been until lately superseded by the faster immunoassay techniqes in the field of endocrinology. However, the introduction of fast commercial direct immunoassays has led to a dramatic loss in specificity, especially in the field of pediatric endocrinology. For a long time the enormous analytical power of chromatography and mass spectrometry based techniques regarding specificity and their ability to simultaneously determine a multitude of metabolites has been underestimated. However, with the realization that the metabolome reflects the processes actually taking place in the (human) body and using systems biology methods to cope with the enormous wealth and complexity of information, platform techniques, such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) face a renaissance. Particularly in the field of steroid metabolism, exciting rediscoveries and new observations have taken place. This talk will first introduce the audience to the principles of mass spectrometry based analytical techniques most commonly used in clinical care or research, particularly the hyphenated techniques GC-MS and LC-MS. Thereafter, the talk will focus on examples from the author’s work on the highly successful use of these techniques in the metabolic diagnosis or monitoring of various steroid related disorders in research or clinical practice.