Objective: To date, serum free testosterone measurement is considered to be the gold standard for the diagnosis of hypogonadism in elderly males but it is not available to all subjects suspected of a decrease in testicular function. Therefore, we evaluated whether the Androgen Deficiency in Aging Males (ADAM) questionnaire, in its original or in a modified 'quantitative' version (qADAM), could be used as a surrogate to biochemical determinations for the identification of hypogonadism in elderly males.
Methods: 5028 men, aged 50-70 years, spontaneously consulting for the assessment of their gonadal function were studied. ADAM and qADAM, allocating a value of 1 point for any positive answer to each of the 10 questions of the ADAM test, were assessed for their ability to discriminate between males with free testosterone levels below or above 70 ng/l.
Results: The sensitivity and specificity of the ADAM score were 81% and 21.6% respectively. The use of ADAM resulted in an appropriate classification of our population in normal or hypogonadal subjects in 44.5% of the cases. The area under the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve for the qADAM (0.529) revealed a highly marginal interest of this quantitative approach compared with the original scoring system.
Conclusions: The ADAM test has a high sensitivity to identify aging males with low free testosterone levels. However, due to its lack of specificity, this test cannot be used as a surrogate to serum free testosterone testing for the identification of androgen deficiency in elderly, community-dwelling males.