[Experimentation in Lille with the passive hemagglutination test for the detection of Australia antigen. Comparison with other methods].

Among 5347 blood donors sera, the reverse passive hemagglutination test (RPH) enabled to detect 3,55% of HB ag (whereas 2,43% by EID). On the other hand, among 180 patients, the rate of positive reactions was observed to be the same for both techniques, which must be attributed to the presence of higher titer antigens. In the two series all positive reactions found by RPH method were also tested by RIA; this enabled to eliminate a great number (18% and 27%) of false positive reactions, which remain the disadvantage of the method. It must be also noticed that the complement fixation reaction gave the same results as the RIA.