“COMPARISON OF A RAPID SEMI-QUANTITATIVE LATEX AGGLUTINATION SLIDE METHOD AGAINST QUANTITATIVE PARTICLE ENHANCED TURBIDIMETRIC IMMUNOASSAY FOR MEASUREMENT OF C- REACTIVE PROTEIN”

Abstract

Serum C - reactive protein (CRP) is an acute phase marker in humans that is useful for the diagnosis and monitoring of inflammatory disease. CRP measurement also helps in differential diagnosis, in the management of neonatal septicaemia and meningitis where standard microbiological investigations are very much time-consuming. Reliable method (Automated particle enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay) are preferable for routine evaluation of human serum CRP levels. Using such expensive methods in health centres in rural areas is not possible. The aim of this to evaluate whether human CRP levels could be measured by rapid method (Latex agglutination slide method) and compared with reliable method (particle enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay).The study included 400 participants, who attended Shree Krishna Hospital, Karamsad, whose CRP levels were done by particle enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay method in Siemens Dimension Clinical Chemistry Analyzer, RxL and Xpand and compared by rapid method (Latex Agglutination slide method), that will be useful in health centres in rural areas where expensive instruments are not available. We used SPSS for data analysis and Endnote X7 for references management. In present study, out of 400 (217 male and 183 female) participants, we found 337 participants had positive CRP levels (≥0.3 mg/dl) and 63 participants had negative CRP levels (<0.3 mg/dl) by particle enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay method, whereas 303 had positive CRP levels (≥0.6mg/dl) and 97 had negative CRP levels (<0.6mg/dl) by Latex Agglutination slide method. The correlation was positive between two methods with (r = 0.764, P -value <0.0001). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were 89.9%, 100%, 100%, and 64.94%, respectively, for the Latex Agglutination slide method, and 100%, 64.9%, 89.91% and 100%, respectively, for the particle enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay method. Serum C- reactive protein (CRP) levels can be reliably measured using the particle enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay method, but it is expensive, so we can use Latex agglutination slide method in rural areas for primary diagnosis only.
 Key Words: CRP, Latex Agglutination slide method, particle enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay method.