Comparison of chemical and radiochemical methods in determination of steroid hormones

: While in some cases steroids can be measured directly in serum or plasma by radioimmunoassay (RIA), in other cases, especially when analyses are carried out in urine, the samples must be processed before RIA can be performed. The operations involved in the preparation of urinary or blood extracts suitable for the RIA of steroid hormones are examined and compared in terms of practicability with the analytical procedures currently used for the chemical determination of the same steroids or their metabolites.