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Detection of serum interferon‐α by dissociation‐enhanced lanthanide fluoroimmunoassay
Author(s) -
RÖNNBLOM L. E.,
PERERS A.,
VALLIN H. SVENSSON,
ERIKSSON I.,
ÖSTERLIND A.,
CEDERBLAD B.,
ALM G.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1997.tb05050.x
Subject(s) - mononucleosis , medicine , interferon , immunology , alpha interferon , viral disease , virology , alpha (finance) , virus , gastroenterology , surgery , construct validity , patient satisfaction
A sensitive dissociation‐enhanced lanthanide fluoroimmunoassay (DELFIA) was evaluated for ability to detect interferon‐α (IFN‐α) in serum of patients with acute infectious disease of less than one week's duration and a fever of >38°C. None of 36 patients with confirmed or probable bacterial disease was IFN‐α positive. In contrast, 13/26 patients with viral infections had detectable levels of IFN‐α in serum, all clearly positive (≥10 U/ml). The IFN‐α positive serum samples were obtained early after onset of clinical disease, after a mean of 2.4 days. The IFN‐α positive samples were obtained from 10 of the 12 patients with influenza or flu‐like infection, and 3 of the 5 patients with varicella or herpes zoster. The IFN‐α negative patients with viral disease (n=9) included five patients with mononucleosis. The DELFIA should be useful in further studies of the value of IFN‐α determinations in the identification of acute viral infections.