IMPROVEMENTS IN ACCURACY AND REPRODUCIBILITY OF QUANTITATIVE CLOTTINGFACTOR ASSAYS BY USE OF A NOVEL-APPROACH FOR MODELING REFERENCE CURVES

A method for creating a reference model in the quantitative assay of s pecific clotting factor activities is described. This method incorpora tes the use of a piecewise function with two component polynomials. Th is function allows more accurate representation of the global coagulat ion reaction, a sequential activation of multiple serine protease enzy mes and cofactors, leading to improvements over traditional methods in range, accuracy, precision and robustness in reported activity levels . Clotting factor assay results using this method are compared with tr aditional and other candidate methods.