Cytomegalovirus antibody screening on the Olympus PK7100

The Olympus PK™ CMV system (OHA) for the detection of antibodies to cytomegalovirus (CMV) was evaluated for use on the Olympus PK7100 automated pretransfusion blood testing instrument. Indeterminate reactions were obtained with 18 (1.2%) of the 1,495 samples originally tested, of which 9, 6, and 3 were OHA positive, indeterminate, and negative, respectively, on retest. The OHA was found to have a concordance of 99.7 percent when tested in parallel with the CMV Scan latex agglutination test (LAT). There were four discrepant results in the 1,495 donor plasmas tested by the two methods. Two of the three samples that were positive by the LAT and negative by the OHA test were also negative with the IMx enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and complement fixation test (CFT). The OHA failed to detect antibodies to CMV in a sample that was positive by the IMx ELISA, CFT, and LAT. The IMx ELISA, which was regarded as the arbiter of true positivity, yielded a sensitivity and specificity of 99.9 percent and 100 percent respectively, for the Olympus PK™ CMV system. Forty percent of 1,807 random blood donors in this region had antibodies to CMV. CMV testing can be performed simultaneously with blood grouping and red cell antibody screening on the Olympus PK7100. Immunohematology 1992;8:41–43.