Development, implementation, and impact of acceptability criteria for serologic tests for infectious diseases.

摘要: Serologic testing is essential for the diagnosis of some infectious diseases and yet fraught with potential pitfalls. All parts diagnostic process must be optimized to ensure that serologic tests perform adequately. Recognizing a lack clinical data correctly timed, paired sera frequently led uninterpretable serology results at our laboratory, we developed implemented simple acceptability criteria tests. We assessed impact these by comparing submissions year before after implementation criteria. The number performed declined 25% criteria, despite an increase in requests Inappropriate acute-phase alone fell from 49 0% (P < 0.001) monitored. Appropriate submission rose 9 19% = 0.006). proportion classified as interpretable 52 100% 0.001). recommend applied samples submitted microbiology laboratories testing.