Variation in Adolescent Hormone Measures and Implications for Behavioral Research

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Abstract
Using data from a 3-year longitudinal study of 100 young adolescent males, radioimmunoassay (RIA) results for testosterone (T) measured in the same plasma and saliva specimens were compared across six laboratories. Correlation coefficients across labs for plasma samples were generally high, ranging from. 69 to. 96, with most coefficients exceeding. 80. However, cross-lab comparability of saliva T values was poor; two of three coefficients were 0. Correlations between specimen types for concurrently collected blood and saliva samples were highly variable, ranging from 0 to 86. The correspondence between plasma and saliva T values was not better when the same lab performed both types of RIAs. The magnitude of relationships between T and pubertal development, as well as between T and several behavior dimensions, also varied by lab, suggesting different conclusions about the presence and strength of hormone-behavior links.

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