Table 3.

Summary of advantages and disadvantages of assays used for urinary hormone monitoring

Assay	Hormones tested	Advantages and disadvantages
Radioimmunoassay (RIA)	E1-3G	• Excellent correlation between E1-3G and serum E2 (optimal urine dilution of 1:200) [52] • Related hazards and drawbacks of handling radioactive material
Chemiluminescence immunoassay (CIA)	E1-3G PdG	• Provide the stability and sensitivity to detect E1-3G in urine samples, is not significantly affected by background interference, and can be applied to diluted urine without prior purification, with results obtained within 2.5 h [58] • High correlation between urine CIA and serum RIA findings (Pearson’s correlation coefficient 0.92; P < 0.0001) although discrepancies were observed for 23% of patients due to hormone pulsality in blood rather than the urine samples [47] • Successfully used to monitor urinary PdG in normally menstruating healthy women [64]
Enzyme immunoassay	Estrone E1C PdG	• Excellent intra-individual correlation between urinary estrone and serum E2, and urinary E1C and serum E2 [60, 62] • Effect of gonadotropins on E2 metabolism may impact ability of urinary E1C to predict serum E2 at higher values [60] • Shown to be accurate a reliable for monitoring of urinary PdG and E1C [62, 63]
Fluoroimmunoassay	E1-3G PdG	• Validated use for measuring E1-3G and PdG [61] • Correlation between urinary hormone profiles and serum profiles with a 1–2 day delay in urine profiles due to steroid metabolism [45]