CIBA-CORNING ACS-180 TESTOSTERONE ASSAY EVALUATED

A fully automated direct assay of testosterone has been developed for the Ciba Conning ACS:180 immunoassay system. We have evaluated this me thod and compared specimen results with those from the Diagnostic Prod ucts Corp, (DPC) and Medgenix direct assays and an in-house extraction assay, Accuracy of the method was assessed by measuring GC-MS-targete d serum pools, Within-assay imprecision was <6% and between-assay impr ecision <9% over the concentration range examined, High concentrations of lipid caused an increase in the measured testosterone but other po tential interferents were without effect, Recovery was quantitative bu t was affected by sex-hormone-binding globulin. The method was positiv ely biased with respect to the DPC and Medgenix assays but negatively biased with the extraction assay. Measurement of the GC-MS-targeted se rum pools showed the assay to overestimate recovery by similar to 13%. The ACS:180 assay is particularly attractive as a routine assay becau se it is fully automated, obtains the first result in only 15 min, and shows good assay performance.