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Cited by 19Thyroid Disorders and TreatmentsClinical Laboratory Practices and Quality ControlAnalytical Methods in Pharmaceuticals

Correlation between Serum Levels of 3,3ʹ,5ʹ-Triiodothyronine and Thyroid Hormones Measured by Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry and Immunoassay

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Sakai, Hiroyuki, Nagao, Hidenori, Sakurai, Mamoru, Okumura, Takako, Nagai, Yoshiyuki, Shikuma, Junpei, Ito, Rokuro, Imazu, Tetsuya +2 more·2015·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0138864PMC PMC4591014
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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: For measuring serum 3,3',5'-triiodothyronine (rT3) levels, radioimmunoassay (RIA) has traditionally been used owing to the lack of other reliable methods; however, it has recently become difficult to perform. Meanwhile, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) has recently been attracting attention as a novel alternative method in clinical chemistry. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies to date comparing results of the quantification of human serum rT3 between LC-MS/MS and RIA. We therefore examined the feasibility of LC-MS/MS as a novel alternative method for measuring serum rT3, thyroxine (T4), and 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine (T3) levels. METHODS: Assay validation was performed by LC-MS/MS using quality control samples of rT3, T4, and T3 at 4 various concentrations which were prepared from reference compounds. Serum samples of 50 outpatients in our department were quantified both by LC-MS/MS and conventional immunoassay for rT3, T4, and T3. Correlation coefficients between the 2 measurement methods were statistically analyzed respectively. RESULTS: Matrix effects were not observed with our method. Intra-day and inter-day precisions were less than 10.8% and 9.6% for each analyte at each quality control level, respectively. Intra-day and inter-day accuracies were between 96.2% and 110%, and between 98.3% and 108.6%, respectively. The lower limit of quantification was 0.05 ng/mL. Strong correlations were observed between the 2 measurement methods (correlation coefficient, T4: 0.976, p < 0.001; T3: 0.912, p < 0.001; rT3: 0.928, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our LC-MS/MS system requires no manual cleanup operation, and the process after application of a sample is fully automated; furthermore, it was found to be highly sensitive, and superior in both precision and accuracy. The correlation between the 2 methods over a wide range of concentrations was strong. LC-MS/MS is therefore expected to become a useful tool for clinical diagnosis and research.

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  • Several laboratories have developed procedures to accurately determine total T4 and total T3 in human plasma or serum and largely agree on concentration ranges, but this consensus has not been achieved for most other TH metabolites.

    “While meanwhile several laboratories developed procedures to accurately determine total T4 and total T3 in human plasma or serum and largely agree on concentrations ranges (25, 67–73), this consensus has not been achieved yet for most of the other TH metabolites, which occur at much lower concentrations.”

    From 3,5-T2—A Janus-Faced Thyroid Hormone Metabolite Exerts Both Canonical T3-Mimetic Endocrine and Intracrine Hepatic Action (2020) · cites this paper as [70]

    The Introduction describes several studies measuring serum T4 and T3 and says rT3 occurs at extremely low levels that make quantification difficult. The Discussion reports strong T4 and T3 correlations for this study and another, but also notes measurement discrepancies. Neither section establishes agreement among laboratories on concentration ranges or a lack of consensus for most other thyroid-hormone metabolites beyond rT3. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Sakai, H., Nagao, H., Sakurai, M., Okumura, T., Nagai, Y., Shikuma, J., Ito, R., Imazu, T., Miwa, T., & Odawara, M.
Affiliations
  • Tokyo Medical University (JP)
  • ASKA Pharmaceutical (Japan) (JP)
Corresponding author
Sakai, Hiroyuki
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2015-10-01
Volume
10
Issue
10
Pages
e0138864
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0138864
PMC
PMC4591014
OpenAlex
W2266922729
Cited by
19
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2
FWCI
1.30
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
correction (2016-07-07)
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Thyroid Disorders and Treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Clinical Laboratory Practices and Quality Control
  • Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Analytical Chemistry › Analytical Methods in Pharmaceuticals
Keywords
reverse T3, thyroxine, triiodothyronine, thyroid hormones, serum hormone measurement, LC-MS/MS, radioimmunoassay, method comparison, assay validation, automated sample analysis, matrix effects, precision and accuracy, lower limit of quantification, thyroid function tests
MeSH terms
Blood Chemical Analysis, Chromatography, Liquid, Feasibility Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Radioimmunoassay, Thyroxine, Triiodothyronine, Triiodothyronine, Reverse, Reproducibility of Results, Linear Models, Tandem Mass Spectrometry

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