TY - JOUR
T1 - Automated Indirect Immunofluorescence Evaluation of Antinuclear Autoantibodies on HEp-2 Cells
AU - Voigt, Jörn
AU - Krause, Christopher
AU - Rohwäder, Edda
AU - Saschenbrecker, Sandra
AU - Hahn, Melanie
AU - Danckwardt, Maick
AU - Feirer, Christian
AU - Ens, Konstantin
AU - Fechner, Kai
AU - Barth, Erhardt
AU - Martinetz, Thomas
AU - Stöcker, Winfried
N1 - 7 pages
PY - 2012/10/18
Y1 - 2012/10/18
N2 - Indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) on human epithelial (HEp-2) cells is considered as the gold standard screening method for the detection of antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA). However, in terms of automation and standardization, it has not been able to keep pace with most other analytical techniques used in diagnostic laboratories. Although there are already some automation solutions for IIF incubation in the market, the automation of result evaluation is still in its infancy. Therefore, the EUROPattern Suite has been developed as a comprehensive automated processing and interpretation system for standardized and efficient ANA detection by HEp-2 cell-based IIF. In this study, the automated pattern recognition was compared to conventional visual interpretation in a total of 351 sera. In the discrimination of positive from negative samples, concordant results between visual and automated evaluation were obtained for 349 sera (99.4%, kappa = 0.984). The system missed out none of the 272 antibody-positive samples and identified 77 out of 79 visually negative samples (analytical sensitivity/specificity: 100%/97.5%). Moreover, 94.0% of all main antibody patterns were recognized correctly by the software. Owing to its performance characteristics, EUROPattern enables fast, objective, and economic IIF ANA analysis and has the potential to reduce intra- and interlaboratory variability.
AB - Indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) on human epithelial (HEp-2) cells is considered as the gold standard screening method for the detection of antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA). However, in terms of automation and standardization, it has not been able to keep pace with most other analytical techniques used in diagnostic laboratories. Although there are already some automation solutions for IIF incubation in the market, the automation of result evaluation is still in its infancy. Therefore, the EUROPattern Suite has been developed as a comprehensive automated processing and interpretation system for standardized and efficient ANA detection by HEp-2 cell-based IIF. In this study, the automated pattern recognition was compared to conventional visual interpretation in a total of 351 sera. In the discrimination of positive from negative samples, concordant results between visual and automated evaluation were obtained for 349 sera (99.4%, kappa = 0.984). The system missed out none of the 272 antibody-positive samples and identified 77 out of 79 visually negative samples (analytical sensitivity/specificity: 100%/97.5%). Moreover, 94.0% of all main antibody patterns were recognized correctly by the software. Owing to its performance characteristics, EUROPattern enables fast, objective, and economic IIF ANA analysis and has the potential to reduce intra- and interlaboratory variability.
U2 - 10.1155/2012/651058
DO - 10.1155/2012/651058
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 2012
JO - Clinical and Developmental Immunology
JF - Clinical and Developmental Immunology
ER -