INTRODUCTION
   • Hormonal assay is the test carried out on sample of blood 
   to detect and measure the level of a hormone.
   •  It is performed to confirm hormonal abnormalities and 
   also during treatment and after treatment of hormonal 
   abnormalities.
   Measurement of Hormone Concentration in the 
              Blood
  • Hormones are present in the blood in extremely minute 
   quantities.
  •   Some concentrations  are  as  low  as  one  billionth  of  a 
   milligram (1 picogram) per milliliter. Therefore, it was very 
   difficult  to  measure  these  concentrations  by  the  usual 
   chemical means.
                     History of Hormonal Assay
     •  The history of hormone assays begins earlier, with a variety 
        of in vivo biological tests.
     • Later, colourimetric assays were found and used to assay for 
        cortisol.    Since     1970,      immunoassays  have  become 
        increasingly routine and gained dominance within the clinical 
        laboratory for 40 years.
     • After  the  40  years,  a  new  technology,  tandem  mass 
        spectrometry (TMS), is starting to emerge as the method of 
        choice
      Hormonal Assay Techniques
  • Bioassay
  • Immunoassay
   Radioimmunoassay
   Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
  • Tandem mass spectrometry
                                   BIOASSAY
      • It  is  defined  as  the  estimation  of  potency  of  an  active 
        principle in a unit quantity of preparation
      • It   can  be  otherwise  defined  as  detection  and 
        measurement of the concentration of a substance in a 
        preparation using a biological methods.