Skip to main content
. 2014 May 13;99(8):2861–2868. doi: 10.1210/jc.2013-4254

Table 2.

Pulse Characteristics of Plasma ACTH, Serum Total Cortisol, and Salivary Free Cortisol and During the Overall Sampling Perioda

Overall Daytime Period
P Valueb
10 h in Bed 4 h in Bed
Plasma ACTH
    Number of peaks 8 (5; 9) 9 (5; 9) .86
    Trough value, pg/mL 5 (3; 8) 10 (4; 13) .04
    Peak value, pg/mL 11 (9; 17) 15 (9; 21) .05
    Absolute increment, pg/mL 7 (4; 7) 7 (6; 8) .64
Serum total cortisol
    Number of peaks 6 (5; 7) 7 (6; 8) .23
    Trough value, μg/dL 5 (4; 7) 6 (5; 7) .31
    Peak value, μg/dL 7 (7; 11) 9 (9; 10) .22
    Increment, μg/dL 3 (2; 3) 3 (3; 4) .24
Salivary free cortisol
    Number of peaks 5 (3; 7) 5 (4; 6) .74
    Trough value, μg/dL 0.6 (0.4; 0.8) 0.6 (0.4; 0.8) .97
    Peak value, μg/dL 1.0 (0.7; 1.2) 0.9 (0.7; 1.1) .83
    Increment, μg/dL 0.3 (0.2; 0.5) 0.3 (0.2; 0.4) .58
a

Overall sampling period was from 9:00 am to midnight for ACTH and total cortisol and from 2:00 pm to midnight for free cortisol, in the 10-hours-in-bed and 4-hours-in-bed conditions. Data are expressed as median (quartile 1; quartile 3).

b

P values are from the Wilcoxon exact rank test.