title: New strip immunoblot for the confirmation of HTLV-I/II infection.
abstract: In The Netherlands, anti-human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) blood donor screening became mandatory in January 1993. Donations reactive in the enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) screening test are confirmed with Western blot analysis (WB). Only WB-positive or indeterminate blood donors are notified and retested by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) [1]. In accumulated data of the Dutch Blood Banks, only 2% of donors repeatedly positive in the anti-HTLV-I/II ELISA were WB-positive and all of these were also PCR-positive. However, 75% of the ELISA-positive blood donors have indeterminate WB results. In these cases the ELISA reactivities are nonspecific since all WB-indeterminate donors are negative in PCR [2]. Current WB confirmation thus leads to the notification and often to the deferral of many WB-indeterminate blood donors as well as to high costs for PCR testing, illustrating the need for a more specific serological confirmatory assay. The aim of our study was to evaluate a newly developed anti-HTLV-I/II Recombinant Immunoblot Assay (RIBA) to confirm samples reactive to screening tests with a special emphasis on the ability of this test to resolve WB-indeterminate results in blood donors, without compromising the sensitivity.
authors.affiliation: Red Cross Blood Bank Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Vrielink
authors.forename: H L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Zaaijer
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Van der Poel
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Quan
authors.forename: H T
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Cuypers
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rios
authors.forename: P N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Lelie
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Polito
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sra
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: DiNello
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pichuantes
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: H W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Reesink
mesh_terms: D015153:Blotting, Western / Q000379:methods*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015491:HTLV-II Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011994:Recombinant Proteins
chemical_list: D011994:Recombinant Proteins