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New Strip Immunoblot for the Confirmation of HTLV‐I/II Infection
Author(s) -
Vrielink H.,
Zaaijer H.L.,
Poel C.L.,
Quan S.,
Cuypers H.T.M.,
Rios M.,
Lelie P.N.,
Polito A.,
Sra K.,
DiNello R.,
Pichuantes S.,
Larson D.,
Reesink H.W.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
vox sanguinis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.68
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1423-0410
pISSN - 0042-9007
DOI - 10.1111/j.1423-0410.1996.tb01303.x
Subject(s) - blood bank , corporation , medicine , library science , political science , law , emergency medicine , computer science
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.