Nucleic acid technology(NAT) testing for blood screening: A comparative study on individual donation and minipool NAT test / 中国输血杂志

ABSTRACT

【Objective】 To compare the detection performance of Cobas s201, a minipool(MP) nucleic acid test(NAT) system, and Panther, a individual donation(ID) NAT system, in blood donor screening. 【Methods】 NAT was conducted on 126 359 blood samples, and initially reactive (IR) samples were either discriminated or resolved by ID testing.The non-discriminated reactive (NDR) samples implicated in Panther sysytem were subjected to ID-NAT by Cobas s201. Some non-repeatable reactivet(NRR) and repeatable reactive (RR) samples implicated in Cobas s201 system were subjected to ID-NAT by Panther. 【Results】 61 MP-IR cases were implicated in a total of 85 128 samples that detected by Cobas 201, and 29(0.34‰) were RR after resolved by ID testing. 74(1.79‰)IR samples were implicated in 41 231 samples that detected by Panther, and 22 (29.73%) were DR-HBV after discriminatory test. Among the NDR 28 samples detected by Panther multiplex system, 7 were positive by Cobas s201 single sample (PP1) whereas non-reactive in simulated MPs of six by Cobas 201.In 28 RR samples resolved by Cobas 201, 24 positive and 4 negative samples were retested by Panther. Among the 11 samples presenting inconsistent retest results by Panther and Cobas 201, 10 were anti-HBc positive, carrying low viral load HBV. 【Conclusion】 The NAT-yield by Panther was significantly higher than that by Cobas s201. Some samples with negative discriminatory results were OBI, and it is necessary to further track and verify the unidentified samples. Cobas s201 is more suitable for a wide array of MP-NAT testing while Panther sample loading, which is flexible and easy to operate, is more suitable for ID-NAT with medium sample size.