Semi-automated carbohydrate-deficient transferrin in primary biliary cirrhosis: A pilot study

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is one of the few non-alcohol induced liver pathologies which causes false positive results in the evaluation of carbo hydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) for the diagnosis of alcohol misuse. Th is phenomenon has only been observed when using the CDTect assay (Pharmacia & Upjohn, Uppsala, Sweden). In this study, we evaluated CDT in female PBC patients (n = 14) by a new CDT procedure, the %CDT turbidimetric immunoassa y (TIA, Axis Biochemicals, Oslo, Norway) using the isoelectric focusing/imm unoblotting/laser densitometry (IEF/IB/LD, Specialty Laboratories, Santa Mo nica, CA, USA) procedure as the gold standard. One of the PBC patients test ed CDT+ by IEF/IB/LD (cut-off >9 densitometry units, DU) and %CDT TIA (cut off >6%); one patient tested at the cut-off point of the IEF/IB/LD and anot her one tested at the cut-off point of the %CDT TIA. Thus, unlike CDTect, t he %CDT TIA is a procedure that produces few false positives in PBC.