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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, February 1998, p. 387-390, Vol. 36, No. 2
Department of Medicine, School of Medicine,
University of California at Los Angeles,1 Los
Angeles, California, and
Chiron Corporation,2
Emeryville, California
Received 12 May 1997/Returned for modification 11 July
1997/Accepted 31 October 1997
A comparison between the CHIRON RIBA hepatitis C virus (HCV)
processor and manual systems was performed by using 88 specimens repeatedly reactive by the second-generation HCV enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (HCV 2.0 ELISA) and 111 random specimens from volunteer donors. For the second-generation RIBA HCV strip immunoblot assay (SIA) (RIBA HCV 2.0 SIA), test results correlated strongly between the manual and the automated runs (kappa value, 0.937). For the RIBA HCV 3.0 SIA, the correlation of the test results
was also high (kappa value, 0.899). Among the specimens with positive
results by RIBA HCV 2.0 and 3.0 SIAs, there was a very strong
concordance of the test results between the manual and the automated
runs with regard to the reactive bands. Nine samples had discordant
results between the manual and the automated runs; this was probably
attributable to increased variability in antigen scores close to the
cutoff values for both tests. Run-to-run and within-run testing by the
CHIRON RIBA HCV Processor System showed a very low rate of conflicting
values. In conclusion, the CHIRON RIBA HCV Processor System is capable
of performing RIBA HCV 2.0 and 3.0 SIAs accurately with minimal
operator involvement. In addition, the CHIRON RIBA HCV Processor System
shows excellent reproducibility, with the potential for
operator-to-operator and site-to-site variability being greatly
reduced. Our data indicate that this novel methodology may be very
useful for supplemental anti-HCV testing of specimens repeatedly
reactive by ELISA in routine clinical assessments and epidemiologic
evaluations.
0095-1137/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Automated RIBA Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Strip
Immunoblot Assay for Reproducible HCV Diagnosis
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Dumont-UCLA
Liver Transplant Program, UCLA School of Medicine, 77-123D CHS, 10833 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024-1749. Phone: (310) 825-5302. Fax:
(310) 852-5302. E-mail: Pmartin{at}surgery.medsch.ucla.edu.
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