Valutazione preliminare del sistema Alere NS-Plus per la determinazione della transferrina fecale

AUTORI

ABSTRACT

Preliminary evaluation of the Alere NS-Plus system for the determination of faecal transferrin

Transferrin (Tf) appears in stools after gastro-intestinal tract bleeding. Compared to hemoglobin, Tf is more stable and resistant to degradation; consequently, its determination in stools has been proposed because it could reveal bleeding that may skip with the hemoglobin research. In this study, faecal Tf was determined with the Otsuka Electronics NS-Plus analytical system, using reagents, control materials and disposable devices from Alfresa Pharma (distributed by Alere). Samples were collected by using a disposable device that allows the draw of a standardized amount of faeces and its dilution in a predetermined volume of buffer. Tf measurements were performed immunochemically with a method based on colloidal gold agglutination. We evaluated imprecision (within-run and total CV) at different concentration levels, linearity, method alignment and limit of blank (LOB). The within-run CV was between 0.9% and 23.6% for Tf concentration of 209 and 6 μg/L, respectively. The total CV was 7.4 % and 6.4% for concentrations of 46 and 154 μg/L, respectively. The method showed good linearity and agreement between expected and found values (r=0.999) for a concentration interval 5÷500 μg/L. The value of the LOB was 1.52 μg/L. In conclusion, in this preliminary evaluation the NS-Plus system showed good analytical performance, possibly permitting its use in the clinical setting.

BIBLIOGRAFIA