Determination of Urinary 17-Ketogenic Steroids by Means of Sodium Metaperiodate Oxidation

Abstract
The method of Few has been adapted for routine determination of urinary 17-ketogenic steroids. Urine was treated with sodium borohydride, followed by sodium metaperiodate. Extraction was carried out with chloroform, and the Zimmermann reaction was performed on the residue. Marked improvement in reproducibility of 17-ketogenic steroid values over the method previously used in this laboratory was obtained. The procedure appears to be free of many of the difficulties encountered in the bismuthate methods. Twenty determinations may be done daily by one person. Normal values were 9–17 mg/24 hr for males and 7–12 mg/24 hr for females in the age range of 19–35 years. The average deviation for 3 separate analyses on 23 individual urines was 0.44 mg/24 hr. Approximately 80 determinations have been done on normal subjects and over 600 on patients, without apparent technical difficulty.