RESUMEN
Asian, Siberian, and American ginseng are known to interfere with serum digoxin measurements using fluorescence polarization technology, Digoxin II and Digoxin III assays (Abbott Laboratories, Green oaks, IL) as well as other digoxin assays. Abbott Laboratories more recently launched two new digoxin assays: iDigoxin, a chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay for application on the ARCHITECT i1000SR and i2000SR immunoassay analyzers, and cDigoxin, a particle-enhanced turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay for application on the ARCHITECT c4000, c8000, and c1600 clinical chemistry analyzers; and we studied potential interferences of ginsengs with these two assays in vitro. When aliquots of drug-free serum pool treated with activated charcoal were supplemented with extracts of various ginsengs, no significant apparent digoxin values were observed. In addition, when aliquots of the digoxin pool prepared from patients taking digoxin were further supplemented with these ginseng extracts and the digoxin values were re-measured, we observed no statistically significant difference in observed digoxin values compared to the original digoxin value of the pool. These results further establish that relatively new digoxin assays for application on the ARCHITECT analyzers that employ specific monoclonal antibodies against digoxin are free from interferences from Asian, Siberian, and American ginseng.
