Objectives: Implementing fully automated analyzers has become a crucial safety step in blood donation centers. The Elecsys® assays were evaluated on the cobas e 801 module (Roche Diagnostics) for routine first-time blood donor screening.
Materials & methods: Five Elecsys infectious disease assays were tested on the cobas e 801 module at Etablissement Français du Sang, Montpellier, France (March-April 2018). The performance of Elecsys HIV Duo, Anti-HCV II, HBsAg II, Anti-HBc II, and Syphilis assays was compared with PRISM HIV O Plus, HCV, HBsAg, HBcore, and newbio pk TPHA assays (specificity analyses)/ARCHITECT Syphilis TP (sensitivity analyses), respectively. Specificity was determined in residual fresh serum samples from unselected first-time blood donors (n≥5195 per parameter). Elecsys assay sensitivity was tested using 30 preselected, positively characterized samples per assay and compared with archived routine testing data for comparator assays.
Results: Across all parameters, specificities for repeatedly reactive samples ranged from 99.81-100.00% for Elecsys assays and 99.71-99.98% for comparator assays. Sensitivities of Elecsys and comparator assays were the same for hepatitis C (85.19%), hepatitis B surface antigen (70.00%), hepatitis B core antigen antibodies (100.00%), and syphilis (100.00%). The sensitivity of the Elecsys HIV Duo assay was higher than the comparator assay (83.33% vs. 76.67%), but the difference was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: Elecsys infectious disease assays on the cobas e 801 module demonstrated high specificity and sensitivity for screening first-time blood donor samples, and were comparable with other commercially available assays. The Elecsys assays are reliable tests for screening blood donations.
Keywords: Blood donation testing; Donors; Serological testing; Transfusion-transmissible infections.
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