Endocrine Insider
January 7. 2010

(See Full Issue)

The Endocrine Society and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will host a consensus conference to identify key recommendations from the scientific and medical communities on ways to enhance the use of accuracy-based testosterone (T) assays.  The conference will take place February 18-19 at the CDC in Atlanta, and participation is by invitation only.

Deficiencies in testosterone assays, especially in the critical low ranges, severely limit effective use of these assays in research and clinical settings.  The consensus conference is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Society and CDC aimed at a common goal—improved patient care and public health through the development and broad implementation of standardized testosterone measurements. 

As a call to action, The Endocrine Society published an article in the February 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism summarizing the evidence of these deficiencies and recommending accuracy-based testing of testosterone and calibration of all methods against a single standard.  Also in 2007, the CDC initiated a project to standardize the measurement of testosterone in human plasma. 

Standardized methods, reference materials, and reference ranges have been developed by CDC and are now available to laboratories and assay manufacturers.  Efforts to inform the medical and scientific community of the problem and its solutions are ongoing. The February consensus conference will result in a unified call from the medical and scientific community for accurate and reliable standardized testosterone testing.