title: Evaluation of hepatitis B antigen testing in federally licensed blood banks in the United States.
abstract: Between August 1972 and January 1974, the Burear of Biologics distributed four panels of 20 coded serum samples to all federally licensed blood banks for hepatitis B antigen testing. Initially, all but six blood banks reported results by counterelectrophoresis (CEP) only, but by January 1974, 152 of 247 banks reported results by radioimmunoassay (RIA). On the four panels distributed, correct results were reported for 63 to 83% of all potentially detectable samples by CEP and for 98 to 100% of all samples potentially detectable by RIA. Perfect scores were obtained by only 5 to 25% of blood banks using CEP but by 77 to 100% using RIA. Nonreproducible results on duplicate reactive samples, included to evaluate internal consistency, ranged from 0.5 to 25% by CEP and from zero to 5% by RIA. These results demonstrate greater reliability in addition to greater sensitivity of "third generation" RIA testing in comparison with "second generation" CEP testing.
mesh_terms: D001771:Blood Banks; D004586:Electrophoresis; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006511:Hepatitis B Antigens / Q000032:analysis*; D008007:Licensure, Medical; D011863:Radioimmunoassay; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D006511:Hepatitis B Antigens