ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is one of the tumor markers available for evaluating disease progression status after initial therapy and monitoring subsequent treatment modalities in colorectal, gastrointestinal, lung, and breast carcinoma. We evaluated the correlations and differences between widely used, automated CEA immunoassays at four different medical laboratories. METHODS: In total, 393 serum samples with CEA ranging from 3.0 to 1,000 ng/mL were analyzed on ADVIA Centaur XP (Siemens Diagnostics, Tarrytown, NY, USA), ARCHITECT i2000sr (Abbott Diagnostics, Abbott Park, IL, USA), Elecsys E170 (Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis, IN, USA), and Unicel DxI800 (Beckman Coulter, Fullerton, CA, USA), and the results were compared. Deming regression, Passing-Bablok regression, and Bland-Altman analyses were performed to evaluate the data correlation and % differences among these assays. RESULTS: Deming regression analysis of data from Elecsys E170 and UniCel DxI800 showed good correlation (y=3.1615+0.8970x). According to Bland-Altman plot, no statistically significant bias (−1.78 ng/mL [95% confidence interval: −4.02 to 0.46]) was observed between Elecsys E170 and UniCel DxI800. However, the relative differences of CEA concentrations between assays exceeded the acceptable limit of 30%. Regarding the agreement of positivity with cut-off value 5.0 ng/mL, ARCHITECT i2000sr and Elecsys E170 showed the highest agreement (95.2%), whereas ADVIA Centaur XP and ARCHITECT i2000sr showed the lowest agreement (70.7%). CONCLUSIONS: Agreements between automated CEA immunoassays are variable, and individual CEA concentrations may differ significantly between assays. Standardization of serum CEA concentrations and further harmonization are needed.
Subject(s)
Bias , Biomarkers, Tumor , Breast Neoplasms , Carcinoembryonic Antigen , Disease Progression , Immunoassay , Lung , Statistics as TopicABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Measurement of postoperative serum thyroglobulin (Tg) is important for detecting persistent or recurrent differentiated thyroid cancer. We evaluated the analytic performance of the DxI 800 assay (Beckman Coulter, USA) for serum Tg and anti-thyroglobulin antibodies (TgAbs) in comparison with that of the GAMMA-10 assay (Shinjin Medics Inc., Korea) for serum Tg and RIA-MAT 280 assay (Stratec, Germany) for TgAb. METHODS: We prospectively collected blood samples from 99 patients thyroidectomized for thyroid cancer. The functional sensitivity was investigated in standards and human serum. Precision and linearity were evaluated according to the guidelines of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. The correlation between the two assays was assessed in samples with different Tg ranges. RESULTS: The functional sensitivity of the DxI 800 assay for serum Tg was between 0.0313 and 0.0625 ng/mL. The total CV was 3.9-5.6% for serum Tg and 5.3-6.9% for serum TgAb. The coefficient of determination (R2) was 1.0 and 0.99 for serum Tg and TgAb, respectively. The cut-offs for serum TgAb were 4.0 IU/mL (DxI 800) and 60.0 IU/mL (RIA-MAT 280), and the overall agreement was 68.7%. The correlation between the two assays was excellent; the correlation coefficient was 0.99 and 0.88 for serum Tg and TgAb, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The DxI 800 is a sensitive assay for serum Tg and TgAb, and the results correlated well with those from the immunoradiometric assays (IRMA). This assay has several advantages over the IRMA and could be considered an alternative test for Tg measurement.