title: Erythrocyte ferritin concentration: analytical performance of the immunoenzymatic IMx-Ferritin (Abbott) assay.
abstract: Together with serum ferritin, erythrocyte ferritincan be a valuable diagnostic tool for evaluating the degree of impaired iron metabolism in different diseases. We collected peripheral blood samples from 64 subjects (22 healthy volunteers, 20 patients with hereditary hemochromatosis, and 22 patients on regular hemodialysis with secondary anemia) to evaluate whether an immunoenzymatic method generally used for serum ferritin can also be used to determine erythrocyte ferritin levels under various conditions of body iron status. Serum and erythrocyte ferritin levels were assayed in parallel using a microparticle enzyme immunoassay (MEIA) IMx-Ferritin kit and an IMx analyzer. The inter-assay imprecision of the serum and erythrocyte ferritin assays was 4.9% and 5.05%, the intra-assay imprecision was 2.2% and 2.3%, and the mean recovery was 102% (range 96-105%) and 101% (range 99-105%), respectively. Both serum and erythrocyte ferritin assays showed a detection limit of 1 microg/L and good linearity (R(2) = 0.99) in the intervals 13.9-443 and 3.9-135.6 microg/L, respectively. Our findings demonstrate that the IMx-Ferritin assay currently used to measure serum ferritin levels can also be adopted to measure erythrocyte ferritin insofar as it clearly discriminates high and low erythrocyte ferritin levels in cases of both iron overload and deficiency.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento Scienze Chirurgiche, Università degli Studi, Ospedale Maggiore-IRCCS, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Novembrino
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Porcella
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Conte
authors.forename: Amedeo F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: de Vecchi
authors.forename: Gherardo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Buccianti
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lonati
authors.forename: Lorena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Duca
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ciani
authors.forename: Fabrizia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bamonti-Catena
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000740:Anemia / Q000097:blood; D001331:Automation; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000737:chemistry*; D005260:Female; D005293:Ferritins / Q000032:analysis* / Q000097:blood*; D006432:Hemochromatosis / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000379:methods*; D007501:Iron / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009994:Osmolar Concentration; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D044967:Serum / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D005293:Ferritins; D007501:Iron