This book discusses contemporary features of ject, creating, therefore, a lacuna the could be diagnosis of endocrine diseases using the filled by this project. radiologic technique of percutaneous venous This book is intended to be a practical guide blood sampling for hormone assay. A compre- for vascular and interventional radiologists, in- hensive survey of the field is provided by the ternists, surgeons, endocrinologists, and other contributing authors, who have considerable physicians who care for patients with endocrine expertise in the subject. Some have published diseases. The intention is to provide a practical several articles in the literature; others have text covering anatomical data, clinical prob- extensive clinical experience. lems related to the diagnosis of the endocrine The approach to many of the endocrine dis- diseases, patient preparation for the sampling, eases has been markedly improved ~uring the blood sampling techniques, sample manipula- last two decades because of selective venous tion and storage, laboratory data, and clinical blood sampling, not only in the diagnosis of the significance of the hormone sampling and condition but especially in the precise localiza- assay. tion of the hormone-producing lesion and its clinical significance. Scattered informationbn venous blood sam- pling is available in the literature, but there is Renan Uftacker no comprehensive text dealing with the sub- Reingard Sorensen Contents Preface v Contributors xi 1 Selective Venous Sampling for the Differential Diagnosis of Female Hyperandrogenemia 1 Lathar Moltz and Reingard Sorensen Introduction ...1 Diagnostic Procedures ...2 Indications ...4 Anatomy and Anatomical Variations...