Current Status of Serum Allergen Tests in Korea / 대한진단검사의학회지

BACKGROUND: Due to the westernization of living environments in Korea, a number of allergy patients are greatly increasing. External quality control assessments are difficult for allergy tests due to the lack of reference methods. We surveyed the current status of allergy tests performed in medical laboratories in Korea to prepare for an external quality control assessment in the near future. METHODS: We conducted a survey on internal and external quality control trials, calibrations and its intervals, medical staffs, analyzers in use, an average number of tests per months, and report formats. RESULTS: Among the 85 laboratories surveyed, 61 were doing allergy tests including 6 reference laboratories. There were two different types of analyzers (1) qualitative or semi-quantitative and (2) quantitative. These analyzers use either chemiluminescent or immunoblot method. Fifty-five laboratories were using 'qualitative or semi-quantitative' analyzers as a screening test and 31 laboratories were using quantitative analyzers. Most of the laboratories were only doing an internal quality control assessment included in the test kits. Excepting a few laboratories, calibrations were not done. About 34 laboratories reported numerical values with interpretative reports prepared by laboratory medical doctors. CONCLUSIONS: The necessity of external quality control assessment has become an issue for improving the quality of allergy tests. But due to the lack of standardization, it is difficult to carry out external quality control assessments. By grouping the laboratories in terms of the type of analyzers, we could overcome the problem of analyzer variations and launch an external quality control assessment program in the near future.

Field evaluation of latex agglutination test for detecting urinary antigens in visceral leishmaniasis in Sudan

A latex agglutination test to detect urinary antigens for visceral leishmaniasis [VL] was studied. In 204 patients with suspected VL, KAtex had a sensitivity of 95.2% with good agreement with microscopy smears but poor agreement with 4 different serology tests. It was also positive in 2 confirmed VL cases co-infected with HIV. In all KAtex-positive confirmed cases actively followed up after treatment, the test became negative 1 month after completion of treatment. While KAtex had a specificity of 100% in healthy endemic and non-endemic controls, the direct agglutination test [DAT] was positive in 14% of the KAtex-negative healthy endemic controls. KAtex is a simple addition to the diagnostics of VL particularly at field level and as a complementary test for the diagnosis of VL in smear-negative cases with positive DAT results

Comparison of an IgM capture ELISA with a dot enzyme immunoassay for laboratory diagnosis of dengue virus infections.

This study describes the use of an IgM capture ELISA using cell culture derived antigens and a polyclonal rabbit antiflavivirus antisera for the detection of dengue positive cases. The IgM capture ELISA is compared with the dot enzyme immunoassay and the results are discussed in the context of dengue endemicity.