Heterophilic antibodies causing falsely high serum calcitonin values

Abstract

Heterophilic antibodies (HA) may interfere in some immunoassays, causing falsely high hormone values, of which practitioners should be aware when measuring calcitonin (CT) used as tumor marker for medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). We studied four patients with thyroid nodules, three of whom underwent surgical neck exploration, after an erroneous diagnosis of MTC because of falsely high serum CT eventually proved to be due to HA. One patient had a lingual thyroid, two autoimmune thyroiditis and the fourth a colloid goiter. The minimal incremental CT response to calcium infusion raised our suspicion of possible false high CT values due to HA. There was no linearity of the CT values obtained by testing serial dilutions of the sera in the CT assay, which employs two monoclonal mouse anti-CT antibodies. Addition of normal mouse gamma globulin eliminated the interference by HA in the sera of two patients. Serum assayed in a polyclonal radioimmunoassay using goat anti-CT antibodies gave normal CT values. Finally, incubation of the sera in Heterophilic Blocking Tubes (HBT) eliminated the false CT immunoreactivity. A spontaneous change of the CT serum concentrations was noticed in three patients over several months, apparently due to changing titles of HA. We suggest that, in patients a) whose CT response to calcium or pentagastrin infusion is minimal despite high basal CT values, b) with autoimmune thyroiditis and c) in whom an unexpected change in serum CT concentrations occurs, the possibility of spuriously high CT values because of circulating HA should be considered.