Low levels of testosterone in females may be a sign of menopause or problems with the ovaries’ pituitary or adrenal glands. Some symptoms of high T levels in females may also be indicators of other conditions related to hormonal imbalances. Saliva testing captures real-time levels of testosterone as it moves through the body, making it more accurate for understanding current hormone function. We have therefore developed, for the first time, a sufficiently sensitive method to accurately quantify T concentration in female saliva and generate results that could be used to construct reliable Sal-T reference intervals for females. The sample size was sufficient to detect a statistically significant (5% significance level) correlation between salivary and blood testosterone if the underlying correlation is 0.7 with a power of more than 0.99.
Sal-T in males was initially measured using LC-MS/MS according to a previously published method (13), but due to the low concentrations of testosterone in the female range it was necessary to improve the assay sensitivity. Paired saliva and blood samples were collected from 104 men and 91 women recruited by advertisements from the general population (age range 16 – 74 years stratified to ~20 in each decade). As compared with the standard medium of blood (serum/plasma), the use of saliva will obviate the need for, and avoids the costs, stress and pain of venepuncture and attendance at a clinic or home visit by clinical personnel. A self-administered non-invasive method to collect biological samples in which measurements of testosterone (T) levels can be accurately determined is clearly of enormous value to population research, population screening, patient diagnosis and treatment monitoring. The assay achieved a lower limit of quantification of 5pmol/L, sufficiently sensitive to measure testosterone in female saliva. A more sensitive LC-MS/MS assay was developed to enable Sal-T quantitation in the low concentrations found in females.
It was successfully used to monitor the stability of testosterone and is suitable to investigate testosterone level in clinical practice and clinical research. In unprocessed samples, it was stable for 24 h at room temperature (≥97%), 8 weeks at −20°C (≥91%), or after three freeze-and-thaw cycles (≥82%). Bias is calculated as measured level minus nominal level/nominal level time 100. Thus, determining testosterone level is important in the management of sex hormonal disorders in both men and women.
This can address common concerns and help detect diabetes, assess heart health, evaluate testosterone levels and more. Salivary Testosterone levels are unaffected by salivary flow rate. Testosterone is an anabolic steroid hormone synthesized from androstenedione in the Leydig cells of the testes of males and, in smaller quantities, in the ovaries of females.
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A series of four studies were conducted to explore 1) analytical assay performance, 2) stability of T in saliva, 3) the correlations between Sal-T and serum-T and 4) individual variations in T, each of which are described in detail later. More recently a method has been described for measurement of Sal-T in males without derivatization that required only a small sample volume (13). Recent studies have described the liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis of Sal-T in males but the assays required either derivatization or large sample volumes to improve sensitivity (11, 12). Measuring Sal-T concentrations may therefore provide an opportunity to directly assess ‘tissue’ testosterone concentrations which in turn may be a more accurate index of overall androgenicity and an alternative to serum free (free-T) or bio available-T.

Gender: Female

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