Reliability of urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin as a biomarker in breast cancer

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of cryopreservation at different storage temperatures on urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin (aMT6s) concentration. Overnight urine from 28 postmenopausal women participating in the ORDET cohort study was filtered and separated into 6 mL aliquots. Urine samples were stored at -80°C and at -30°C for an average of 14 years. Urinary aMT6s concentration was assessed using a competitive immunoassay. Mean aMT6s values of samples stored at -30°C were systematically lower than those of samples stored at -80°C (10.7 ng/mL versus 15.8 ng/mL, p<0.001). Bland Altman plots showed disagreement between determinations at different storage temperatures at the highest levels of the metabolite concentration. The degree of agreement evaluated in terms of intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.68 (95% CI 0.41-0.84, p<0.0001). Pearson's correlation coefficient between aMT6s values of the two differently stored samples was 0.93 (p<0.001), while the Kendal tau coefficient for rank distribution was 0.73 (p<0.001). Our data suggest that storage temperatures might affect degradation of aMT6s during storage. However, individual characterization by melatonin levels does not seem to be affected by cryopreservation conditions.