Context
Cortisol analysis is used as a biomarker of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity associated with physiological stress 1,2. Cortisol is slowly and continuously incorporated into growing hair. This approach provides a long-term index of stress assessment. Gonzalez et al3 suggest a hair cortisol concentration median of 55 pg/mg hair (range 40-128 pg/mg hair) in healthy individuals with low levels of stress and 250 pg/mg hair (range 182-520 pg/mg hair) in stressed individuals. Our goal for this application note is to develop a diagnostic tool to rapidly quantify cortisol in hair as a biomarker for long-term stress assessment. LDTD®-MS/MS offers specificity combined with an ultra-fast analysis for an unrivaled quantification method. To develop this application, we focused on performing an efficient sample preparation, which will increase the speed of the analysis process.
