Estradiol-17 beta quantified in serum by isotope dilution-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry: reversed-phase C18 high-performance liquid chromatography compared with immuno-affinity chromatography for sample pretreatment.

Here, isotope dilution-gas chromatography-mass spectometry is used as a reference technique for determining the concentration of estradiol-17 beta in candidate human serum Reference Material. The accuracy of assigned concentrations in biologic materials is not only determined by instrumental performance, it also depends greatly on the selectivity of the procedure for isolating the analyte from the biological matrix, an issue which we consider insufficiently addressed in the literature. We introduced reversed-phase C18 high-performance liquid chromatography as a fractionation procedure in addition to the commonly used solvent extraction and column chromatography on Sephadex LH-20. The validity of this approach as part of a Reference Method for measurement of estradiol-17 beta by isotope dilution-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was investigated by comparison with immuno-affinity chromatography, which on theoretical grounds is generally considered as highly selective.