Abstract
Human serum calcitonin concentration in normal individuals was measured with a new assay based on the chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay (CLEIA) method. The CLEIA assay was highly sensitive and was able to determine a calcitonin concentration of 0.04 pg/ml as sensitivity limit at a condition of 0+3SD. With this CLEIA assay, the mean value of calcitonin in males and females was 2.26 and 1.33 pg/ml, respectively, highlighting a significant difference between genders.
The mean value and range of human serum calcitonin in this assay were approximately 1/10 those reported previously in competitive radioimmunoassay (RIA) methods. Since RIAs for calcitonin showed much variability at a low concentration range due to the competitive format, they seemed to lack the necessary sensitivity to cover the normal range and appeared only useful for hyper‐calcitonin phenomenon in diseases such as medullary thyroid carcinoma. The CLEIA for calcitonin provided a lower detection limit than normal range, and it can therefore be assumed that it could be applied for the measurement of hypo‐calcitonin phenomena typically found in some disorders such as osteoporosis. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 12:218–222, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Keywords: human calcitonin, human serum, enzyme immunoassay, chemiluminescence, age
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