Improving the comparability of immunoassays for prostate-specific antigen (PSA): progress and problems.

BACKGROUND

Commutability of immunoassay test results is an important objective for laboratory medicine.

METHODS

PSA is a clinically important analyte for which, as a consequence of a number of national and international initiatives over the last decade, considerable progress has been made towards improving method comparability. However, results from different assays are still not interchangeable, a situation that is only likely to improve once broad recommendations can be made about the most clinically relevant antibody combinations.

CONCLUSIONS

Universal implementation of such recommendations would almost certainly improve between-method agreement substantially, provided careful attention were paid to assay design and use of appropriately pure secondary standards ensured.