title: Assessment of new hyaluronic acid assays and their impact on FibroMeter scores.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We compared three hyaluronic acid (HA) assays and analyzed the impact of their variations on FibroMeter scores.
  
  
  METHODS
  In a test group of 165 patients, HA levels were assessed with the commonly used ELISA assay from Corgenix, a new ELISA assay from Teco and an immunoturbidimetry assay from Wako, this latter tested across three different instruments. Five different FibroMeter scores were calculated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Correlation across the three assays (r(s) between 0.969 and 0.995) was very good. Means of differences (d) were lower when the immunoturbidimetry assay was compared on different instruments: d between -3.4 and 2.0 μg/L. However, a higher value for HA measurement was observed with Corgenix assay, compared to the other two assays (Teco and Wako): d between 27.1 and 36.4 μg/L. The assessment also demonstrated that HA variations had very little impact on FibroMeter scores: 0.0117 for virus and 0.0416 for alcoholic fibrosis scores, and between 0.58 and 1.71 for the area of fibrosis (expressed in percentage).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The two new assays found lower values of HA, as compared to the Corgenix assay. However, these differences had very little impact on FibroMeter scores and had no impact on clinical evaluation of liver fibrosis.
authors.affiliation: Virology Department, Angers University Hospital, Angers, France.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Veillon
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gallois
authors.forename: Valérie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Moal
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Fouchard-Hubert
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Charles
authors.forename: Françoise
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Larcher
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dib
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Boursier
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Oberti
authors.forename: Jihane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Laafi
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guéchot
authors.forename: Viorica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Balan
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Calès
authors.forename: Françoise
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lunel-Fabiani
mesh_terms: D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006820:Hyaluronic Acid / Q000032:analysis*; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000175:diagnosis; D008297:Male; D009391:Nephelometry and Turbidimetry
chemical_list: D006820:Hyaluronic Acid