EVALUATION OF THE DPC IMMULITE RANDOM-ACCESS IMMUNOASSAY ANALYZER

The automated immunoassay analyser, IMMULITE, developed by DPC, was ev aluated. IMMULITE is an automated system that allows random access in combination with immediate and continuous access. In this study we eva luated the IMMULITE on four panels of analytes: thyroid, fertility, tu mour and ''non-routine'' markers. We observed good within-run reproduc ibility (ranging from 2.3-15.9%CV, for low controls, to 2.7-8.7%CV for high controls) as well as between-day imprecision (ranging from 3.7-2 4.6%CV for low controls, to 2.5-11.8%CV for high controls). The analyt ical sensitivity of the assays ranged generally from very sensitive to acceptable. The dilution curves for all assays were nearly linear i. e. the maximum deviation of the observed from the expected recovery wa s 8%. Correlation between IMMULITE and other assays (AxSYM, IMx, TDx, AIA-1200, DPC-c. a. c., Medgenix) varied from r = 0.931 to r = 0.994, except for lutropin and parathyrin with coefficients of correlation of r = 0.594 and r = 0.591. The slopes of the regression lines ranged fr om 0.745 to 1.327, except for parathyrin where a slope of 2.389 was fo und. Inter-laboratory correlation was very good between the two locati ons (Sittard and Apeldoorn) and varied from r = 0.984 to r = 0.999; sl opes of the regression lines varied from 0.924 to 1.086. We conclude t hat the DPC-IMMULITE system is suitable for testing routine analytes i n random access mode as well as for testing ''non-routine'' analytes o n an automated immunoassay analyser.