Estradiol levels by cycle phase and after menopause

Estradiol is not one fixed number. It is lower in the early part of the menstrual cycle, higher in the second half, and low again after menopause. Below is one published set of reference limits, copied from the paper with its units.

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Published reference limits

The table is Table 2 of Schüring and colleagues (Annals of Laboratory Medicine, 2016), which gives estradiol on the Immulite 2000XP assay. The authors recruited healthy volunteers in Münster, Germany. The limits are the 2.5th to 97.5th percentiles. Values are in pg/mL.

Group	Women (n)	Median, pg/mL	Lower limit, pg/mL	Upper limit, pg/mL
Follicular phase	139	34.7	-	<97.1
Luteal phase	87	102	31.9	307
Postmenopausal	103	10.0	-	<31.1

A dash means the source gives no lower limit.

Who the numbers describe

• Follicular phase was defined as days 3 to 5 after the start of a period. Luteal phase was days 21 to 23.
• The women in those two groups were 25 to 44 years old, had regular cycles of 25 to 35 days, and had not used hormonal contraceptives or other regular medicines for at least three months.
• Postmenopausal women were 49 to 66 years old and had gone at least 12 months without a period.
• Ninety-six percent of all volunteers were of European descent. The authors say this limits how well the intervals apply to other groups.

The source has no group for the days between those two windows, for pregnancy, or for women taking hormonal contraception or hormone therapy. MedlinePlus says you may need to stop certain medicines, such as the birth control pill and menopause hormone therapy, before an estrogen test, and that estrogen levels in females rise during puberty, are highest during pregnancy and decline after menopause (Estrogen Levels Test).

Why your lab’s range may differ

Ranges depend on the assay, the lab and who was used to set them. The same paper shows it twice.

• The authors’ follicular-phase upper limit (below 97.1 pg/mL) was well below the limit the assay’s manufacturer quotes (below 160 pg/mL). The authors think this comes from how strictly they defined the follicular phase, as days 3 to 5. A looser definition can include women later in that phase.
• The same 87 luteal-phase volunteers were also measured on the Advia Centaur platform, where the estradiol limits were 38.9 to 296 pg/mL, not 31.9 to 307 pg/mL.

MedlinePlus also says labs often use different testing methods and so different reference ranges, and that results are reported in different units, so you cannot compare your result with ranges found elsewhere (How to Understand Your Lab Results).

What to do with your number

Check the range and unit on your report, and note which day of your cycle the blood was drawn. A result outside a range is a reason to talk to a clinician, not a diagnosis. Meaning of a low or high result is covered in low estrogen and high estrogen. To get a result of your own, see the estradiol blood test.