Abstract
Steroid hormones are endocrine-disrupting compounds, which affect the endocrine system at very low concentrations, so interest in the sensitive determination of steroids in the environment has increased in recent years. In this review, we discuss in detail how to enhance the sensitivity of analytical procedures for the determination of female-steroid hormones (estrogens and progestogens) in environmental matrices.
Our objective is to help the reader choose the best analytical tool for sensitive, selective and fast determination of estrogens and progestogens. A number of steps in the analytical procedure, starting with the sample pre-treatment and ending with detection, could significantly contribute to enhancing sensitivity, so they need to be thoroughly optimized.