Patent ID: 7723042

Claim:
A method for specifically determining the whole parathyroid hormone (PTH) amount in a sample while avoiding detecting an interfering non-(1-84) parathyroid hormone fragment, comprising the steps: reacting a sample with a first antibody which recognizes an epitope in the region of the receptor binding site of a parathyroid hormone molecule, wherein said antibody is specific for a peptide comprising amino acid sequence 28 to 34 of human parathyroid hormone and at least four amino acids in said peptide sequence are a reactive portion with said first antibody; reacting the sample with a second antibody or antibody fragment therefore specific for a PTH peptide SER-VAL-SER-GLU-ILE-GLN-LEU-MET (SEQ ID No. 4) as part of the whole human parathyroid hormone molecule, wherein at least four amino acids in said peptide sequence are a reactive portion with said second antibody, while avoiding detecting an interfering non-(1-84) parathyroid hormone fragment; and determining the amount of the parathyroid hormone molecule which is recognized by the two antibodies.