A new modular chemiluminescence immunoassay analyser evaluated

Thyrotropin (TSH), free thyroxine (fT4) and testosterone assays have been u sed as a probe to evaluate the performances of a new modular chemiluminesce nce (CL) immunoassay analyser, the Abbott Architect(TM) I2000. The evaluati on was run in parallel on other systems that use CL as the detection reacti on: DPC Immulite(R), Chiron Diagnostics ACS-180 and ACS Centaur (TSH functi onal sensitivity only). TSH functional sensitivity was 0.0012, 0.009, 0.033 and 0.039 mU/I for the Architect, Immulite, ACS Centaur and ACS-180, respe ctively. Testosterone functional sensitivity was 0.38, 3.7 and 2.0 nmol/l f or Architect, Immulite and ACS-180, respectively. Good correlation was obta ined between the ACS-180 and Architect for all assays. The Immulite correla tion did not agree well with the Architect or ACS-180 for fT4 and testoster one but was in good agreement for TSH. Regarding fT4 and testosterone, equi librium dialysis and isotopic dilution gas-chromatography mass-spectrometry IGC-MS) respectively were used as reference methods. For both within- and between-run precision, the Architect showed the best reproducibility for al l three analytes (CV < 6%).