Good agreement of conventional and gel-based direct agglutination test in immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia

doi:10.1186/1751-0147-54-10

Acta Vet Scand. 2012; 54(1): 10.

Published online 2012 February 8. doi: 10.1186/1751-0147-54-10

PMCID: PMC3296606

Good agreement of conventional and gel-based direct agglutination test in immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia

Christine J Piek,¹ Erik Teske,¹ Martin W van Leeuwen,¹ and Michael J Day²

¹Department of Clinical Sciences of Companion Animals, Utrecht, Utrecht University, PO Box 80154, 3508 TD Utrecht, The Netherlands

²School of Veterinary Sciences, University of Bristol, Langford BS40 5DU, UK

Corresponding author.

Christine J Piek: C.J.Piek/at/uu.nl; Erik Teske: E.Teske/at/uu.nl; Martin W van Leeuwen: M.W.vanLeeuwen/at/uu.nl; Michael J Day: M.J.Day/at/bristol.ac.uk

Received August 11, 2011; Accepted February 8, 2012.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background

The aim of this study was to compare a gel-based test with the traditional direct agglutination test (DAT) for the diagnosis of immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia (IMHA).

Methods

Canine (n = 247) and feline (n = 74) blood samples were submitted for DAT testing to two laboratories. A subset of canine samples was categorized as having idiopathic IMHA, secondary IMHA, or no IMHA.

Results

The kappa values for agreement between the tests were in one laboratory 0.86 for canine and 0.58 for feline samples, and in the other 0.48 for canine samples. The lower agreement in the second laboratory was caused by a high number of positive canine DATs for which the gel test was negative. This group included significantly more dogs with secondary IMHA.

Conclusions

The gel test might be used as a screening test for idiopathic IMHA and is less often positive in secondary IMHA than the DAT.

Keywords: Haemolysis, Anaemia, Diagnostic test validation, Laboratory

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