Sensitivity of individual and mini-pool nucleic acid testing assessed by dilution of hepatitis B nucleic acid testing yield samples

INTRODUCTION: For nucleic acid testing (NAT) of blood donations, either the blood samples can be pooled together in a batch of six or eight prior to testing (mini-pool-NAT [MP-NAT]), or the tests can be run on every individual sample (individual donor-NAT [ID-NAT]). It has been debated in various studies whether pooling of samples results in decreased sensitivity of detection as the volume of individual samples gets lesser in a pool. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of dilution on the sensitivity of tests. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was performesd on nine plasma samples which were hepatitis B reactive exclusively by Procleix Ultrio Plus and not by Procleix Ultrio or serology. These nine exclusive UltrioPlus ID-NAT yield samples were diluted in 1:2, 1:4. 1:6 and 1:8 dilutions using previously tested negative plasma and each dilution of every sample along with archived undiluted sample were retested in three replicates with Procleix Ultrio Plus Assay. RESULTS: Among NAT yield samples, 88.88% of the samples were detected when retested in ID-NAT in undiluted form. Samples with higher viral load (sample 5 and 6) were detected by all dilutions. When samples with viral load below 20 IU/mL were tested in dilutions of 1:6 or 1:8, only 9 out of 27 replicates (33.33%) were detected. This means that more than 67% of low viral load samples were missed by MP-NAT of 1:6 or 1:8 dilution out of total NAT yield samples. CONCLUSION: Individual Donor NAT is ideal methodology for NAT as dilution due to pooling may miss samples with low viral load as evident in this study.