title: Comparative study on 4 EIA kits for screening antibody to hepatitis C virus in pooled sera.
abstract: Four enzyme immunoassay (EIA) test kits, 1 Canadian product and 3 Chinese products, were used in the comparative study. Each pool consisted of 5 sera, and the 5 single sera were tested as controls. The tests were carried out according to the instructions, keeping the same dilution of each serum in single and pool samples. It was found that with the Canadian kit, the positive and negative results of pooled sera had no difference from that of the controls (P > 0.10). In the case of Chinese Yali and Kehua kits, the positive results of pooled sera showed no difference from the controls (P > 0.10), but the optical density (OD) of negative pools were increased (P < 0.01), though quite distant from the cut-off values. In the case of Changzheng kit, the OD of positive pools were significantly lower than those of the controls (P < 0.05), and weak positive samples missed the detection. However this problem could be overcome by blocking the microwells beforehand. Our experiment demonstrate that not all EIA test kits are suitable for screening pools for antibody to hepatitis C virus, and that it is important to assess the sensitivity of the EIA kit to be used for this purpose.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Xuzhou Medical College, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Z X
authors.initials: ZX
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Y C
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: X Y
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood*; D002170:Canada; D002681:China; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D011358:Product Surveillance, Postmarketing; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic