Abstract

Aim. The aim of the study was to verify the validity of an automated system that is both practical and simple for measuring salivary cortisol levels as an alternative to serum assay. A semimanual microwell plate reader system validated for assaying saliva samples was compared with an automated method currently validated for blood and urine samples. Methods. A fully automated enhanced chemiluminescence system (Vitros Eci, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics) was compared with a method validated for this type of analysis that uses a DRG kit for measuring salivary cortisol on a microwell plate reader (ETI-System Fast Reader S800, Sorin Biomedica). To verify the validity of the Vitros Eci system, 155 saliva samples collected from 46 athletes (48 men, 5 women) from different sports were analyzed with both methods. Saliva samples were collected in Salivette test tubes; the samples were frozen and stored at -70° C until testing. Linear regression analysis was performed and a bias plot was made to compare the two methods. Results and conclusion. Study results showed that salivary cortisol can be measured using an automatic method like the Vitros Eci system. The correlatability data between the two methods was statistically significant (r2=0.8363). Verf.-Referat