Clinicians and researchers from The Endocrine Society and other organizations across the country highlighted the critical need to improve tests for measuring steroid hormones at a 2-day conference at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Ga., March 17-18, 2008.

As part of an ongoing collaboration between the Society and CDC, the “CDC Workshop on Improving Steroid Hormone Measurements in Patient Care and Research Translation” was designed to rally both the clinical and research communities to address the need for standardization of tests for testosterone and estradiol.

Conference attendees discussed current needs and problems in testosterone and estradiol testing as well as actions that can be taken to meet these needs. This discussion will help spur efforts to translate research findings related to testosterone and estradiol testing into patient care and launch plans to further educate the clinical and research community on steroid hormone testing.

A main impetus for this recent conference is that current widely used methods lack the sensitivity to measure testosterone in the serum of women, children, and hypogonadal men as described in a Society position statement published in JCEM in February 2007.

The collaborative project will result in implementation of the Society’s primary recommendation to standardize laboratory proficiency testing for testosterone and extends the standardization efforts to include estradiol as well.