Comparison of two radioimmunoassay kits for aldosterone determination

Two commercially available radioimmunoassay kits for aldosterone determination not requiring preliminary chromatographic purification were examined. Aldosterone standard curve solutions prepared from the CIS kit, Nuclear International Corp., (x-axis) and Diagnostic Products kit (y-axis) were assayed with both kits and the results yielded a regression equation of y = 0.834x + 0.08 nmol/liter. Analytical recovery experiments with aldosterone added to urine and serum showed 120% and 101% recovery with the CIS kit, respectively, and 92% and 92% recovery with the Diagnostic Products kit, respectively. Both kits demonstrated good parallelism with urine and serum. Antibody specificity was tested with six structurally related steroids and each kit showed virtually no cross-reactivity at clinically normal serum concentrations. Serum aldosterone values were compared before (y-axis) and after (x-axis) column chromatography on Sephadex LH-20, with the following regression equations: y = 1.070x + 0.092 nmol/liter for the CIS kit and y = 1.023x + 0.093 nmol/liter for the Diagnostic Products kit. Regression equations comparing patient samples between kits, CIS (x-axis) and Diagnostic Products (y-axis), were: y = 0.832x + 0.007 mumol/24 h with urine and y = 0.850x + 0.097 nmol/liter with serum.