Tuesday, July 1, 2014

** Measure cortisol on a smartphone **

The Cushing's community has bemoaned the absence of any cortisol-measuring device for the patient's use. Now after my bilateral adrenalectomy, it is critical that I know what my cortisol levels. I must adjust my hormone replacement, avoid taking too much and giving myself Cushing's, and worse, taking too little and suffering adrenal crisis. We are desperate for a way to measure cortisol levels outside a lab setting. We need tests results quickly.

Here is the recent announcement for a cortisol-measuring device.  After this gets FDA-approval, it will save lives. Such a burden will be lifted for me, my family, and the entire Cushing's community.

""When cortisol levels are overlooked too many people suffer and die because of excess or insufficient cortisol," said Joel Ehrenkranz, MD, director of diabetes and endocrinology at Intermountain Medical Center, and lead researcher of the project.

To help solve this problem, researchers developed a simple saliva test that uses a smartphone and an attached device that inexpensively feeds the results of a saliva test into the smart phone. An app then quantifies and interprets the results of a salivary cortisol assay and gives results in five minutes at the point of care."