Oliveira L C, Kawasato K H, Otta M S, Lima L P, Okay T S
LIM-36, Laboratory of Medical Investigation, Department of Pediatrics, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
J Clin Lab Anal. 2007;21(5):330-4. doi: 10.1002/jcla.20194.
Rubella infection is an exanthematic disease, with high prevalence in the adult population. The only modality of disease that causes serious consequences is congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), which happens when a pregnant woman seronegative to rubella virus acquires the infection during early pregnancy. Due to the lack of signals and characteristic symptoms of disease, diagnosis of rubella is based essentially on laboratory tests: antibodies detection and/or virus isolation. Results of serologic tests should always be interpreted with caution, because they can be affected by the quality of blood samples, processing and storage of sera, the equipment and reagents used to perform tests, and finally by the technical expertise and training of biologists. The collection tubes with gel seem to facilitate serum separation, but on the other hand gels can retain and consequently decrease antibody titers. Therefore, we decided to investigate whether the use of collection tubes containing gel separator might interfere with rubella virus antibody detection in blood samples from children. We did not observe statistically significant differences with respect to rubella virus antibody detection (immunoglobulin M [IgM] and immunoglobulin G [IgG]) for samples collected in tubes with or without gel separator, from the two evaluated manufacturers.
风疹感染是一种发疹性疾病，在成年人群中患病率较高。唯一会导致严重后果的疾病形式是先天性风疹综合征（CRS），即血清学检测对风疹病毒呈阴性的孕妇在妊娠早期感染风疹病毒时发生的情况。由于缺乏疾病的信号和特征性症状，风疹的诊断主要基于实验室检测：抗体检测和/或病毒分离。血清学检测结果应始终谨慎解读，因为它们可能受到血样质量、血清处理和储存、进行检测所使用的设备和试剂的影响，最终还受到生物学家的技术专长和培训的影响。带有凝胶的采血管似乎便于血清分离，但另一方面，凝胶可能会保留并因此降低抗体滴度。因此，我们决定研究使用含有凝胶分离剂的采血管是否会干扰儿童血样中风疹病毒抗体的检测。对于从两家评估制造商处采集的、分别使用有或没有凝胶分离剂的采血管所采集的样本，我们在风疹病毒抗体检测（免疫球蛋白M [IgM]和免疫球蛋白G [IgG]）方面未观察到统计学上的显著差异。
