Abstract
A radio-immunological method applied to the estimation of unconjugated estriol in capillary whole blood is described. The concentration of unconjugated estriol in capillary whole blood and venous serum from 35 pregnant women was measured. Close relation was found between values in venous serum and capillary whole blood. The intra-assay variation was 4.9% for venous and 7.8 % for capillary whole blood samples when analysed in duplicate. The day-to-day variability was of the same order for venous (10.0%) as for capillary (8.4%) samples. It is concluded that unconjugated estriol can be measured in small amounts (25 μl) of capillary whole blood and that this method offers practical advantages over methods using venous serum or plasma.
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