New strip immunoblot for the confirmation of HTLV-I/II infection.
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.
Vrielink
H
H
Red Cross Blood Bank Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Zaaijer
H L
HL
Van der Poel
C L
CL
Quan
S
S
Cuypers
H T
HT
Rios
M
M
Lelie
P N
PN
Polito
A
A
Sra
K
K
DiNello
R
R
Pichuantes
S
S
Larson
D
D
Reesink
H W
HW
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
D011994:Recombinant Proteins