Determination of serum α-fetoprotein by ICA, RIA and ELISA: a comparative study

Objective: To assess the efficacy of magnetic particle capture immunochemical luminescent assay (ICA) for quantative determination of α-fetoprotein (AFP) in comparison with radio immuno assay (RIA) and enzme linked immunoabsorbent assay (ELISA). Methods Thirty serum samples from randomly selected patients were collected to test AFP content with ICA, RIA and ELISA respectively. Results The linear range of AFP, was 1 to 950 ng/ml for ICA, 5 to 400 ng/ml for RIA and 5 to 300 ng/ml for ELISA. The intraassay coefficients of variation (CV) and interassay CV were 2.5% and 5.8% for ICA, 5.0% and 9.2% for RIA, and 10.3% and 14.6% for ELISA, respectively. Correlation tests revealed that the results of RIA was more closely correlated with that of ICA than with that of ELISA. Conclusion ICA is shown to be a better method for AFP quantitation than an and ELISA in terms of precision and linear range.