Technical and clinical performance of six sensitive immunoradiometric assays of thyrotropin in serum.

We evaluated the analytical and clinical performance of six commercial immunoradiometric assay kits for thyrotropin (TSH) in serum in 218 subjects, with and without thyroid dysfunction. Detection limits of the six kits were lower (from 0.07 to 0.25 milli-int. unit/L) than that of conventional TSH RIA (0.7 milli-int. unit/L). Precision was adequate over a wide range of concentrations, although interassay CVs at very low concentrations were good for only two kits (7.3% and 13.1%). Results by all the kits correlated to about the same degree with the TSH RIA (r = 0.92 to 0.98). All showed a positive correlation between both the basal and post-thyroliberin (TRH)-stimulation values for TSH (r = 0.78 to 0.88), and all showed similar euthyroid reference ranges for basal concentrations of TSH. With four of the six kits we could clearly distinguish most of the hyperthyroid patients from healthy euthyroids; however, basal and post-TRH TSH values were not sufficient to discriminate among groups of patients with different grades of thyroid hyperfunction.