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Updated: Jun 23, 2025
Dried Blood Spots - Preparing and Processing for Use in Immunoassays and in Molecular Techniques
Published on: March 13, 2015
Stability of steroid hormones in dried blood spots (DBS)
Anouk Olthof1,2, Jacquelien J Hillebrand1,2, Wjera V Wickenhagen1
1Endocrine Laboratory, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Amsterdam UMC, Location University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Objectives:
Steroid hormone levels of patients may be monitored via dried blood spot (DBS) sampling at home. Stability of steroid hormones in DBS samples, however, needs to be established.
Methods:
DBS samples from healthy volunteers were collected and stored at various temperatures. Steroid hormone concentrations in DBS were measured directly, at day 2, day 7 and day 14 following storage at 37 °C and after 7 days, 14 days, 3 months and 6 months following storage at -20 °C, 4 °C and room temperature (RT). Cortisol, cortisone, corticosterone, testosterone, androstenedione, and 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) were assessed using LC-MS/MS.
Results:
All steroids were stable (±15 %) up to 14 days when stored at 37 °C, except for cortisone (only stable until 2 days). All steroids were stable up to 6 months when stored at -20 °C, 4 °C and RT. However, there were some exceptions, for androstenedione at RT (only stable until 7 days), for 17-OHP when stored at -20 °C (only stable until 3 months), for cortisone at RT and 4 °C (only stable until 14 days), and cortisol at RT (only stable until 3 months).
Conclusions:
Overall, we demonstrated stability of steroid hormone concentrations in DBS under various conditions which may be encountered during shipping to the diagnostic laboratory and during long-term storage before analysis.
