The study showed that E2-17beta was strongly detected in all of 6 extracts from vaginal stains (81-1, 811 ng/ml), 1 of 10 extracts from semen stains (31 ng/ml), and 1 of 9 extracts from female saliva stains (37 ng/ml). All other samples tested were below the limit of quantification. E2-17beta did not exhibit significant degradation in stains kept for 2 days at room temperature. This preliminary report concludes that E2-17beta is present at high concentrations in vaginal secretions, and its detection might be useful in identifying vaginal stains among other body fluid stains. Vaginal stains were obtained from nine females (22-48 years old) by wiping the vaginal secretions with cotton or gauze. The other body fluid stains obtained were semen from 13 males (25-45 years old), urine from 15 males (26-50 years old) and 16 females (24-48 years old), and saliva from 10 males (26-44 years old) and 9 females (26-48 years old). Aliquots of 100 ml of each fluid were applied to gauze and air-dried 3-7 days at room temperature. The authors first quantified the amount of E2-17beta in extracts from body fluid stains of approximately 4 cm in diameter by using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In addition, the usefulness of a simple and rapid commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISHA) kit using E2-17beta monoclonal antibody was examined. Although the ELISHA results were consistent with those from GC-MS, the assay was prone to problems that affected the accuracy of quantification. 1 table, 3 figures, and 19 references