Comparison of the Abbott Alinity m and Qiagen Artus assays for the quantification of BK virus in clinical samples.

Objectives: BK virus (BKV) is highly seroprevalent in humans. After primary infection, it remains latent in the urinary tract and can reactivate in immunocompromised individuals, leading to interstitial nephropathy or hemorrhagic cystitis. The BKV viral load (VL) in plasma correlates with the occurrence of nephropathy and can be monitored in kidney graft recipients; the early detection of BKV viremia can enable an early reduction of immunosuppressant drug doses and the prevention of BKV-associated nephropathy.

Comparison of the Abbott Alinity m and m2000 assays for the quantification of HIV-1, HCV and HBV in clinical samples.

Background: Viral load (VL) determination is an essential parameter of the management of patients infected with HIV, HBV or HCV. Many available molecular systems run on a "batch" mode while "random access" systems provide more flexibility.

Objectives: We compared the performance of HIV-1, HCV and HBV quantification assays on the recently developed Abbott Alinity m system to the m2000 RealTime assays.

Clinical performance of the VERIS HCV assay for hepatitis C virus RNA quantification.

Background: Diagnosis of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and treatment monitoring rely on detection/quantification of HCV RNA and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques are expected to equivalently quantify the different HCV genotypes.

Objective: The clinical performance of the VERIS HCV assay for HCV RNA quantification was compared to that of the Abbott RealTime HCV assay.

Study Design: Qualitative concordance and quantitative comparison were evaluated on a first panel of 286 clinical samples containing HCV genotypes 1-6.

Evaluation of the automated phoenix system for potential routine use in the clinical microbiology laboratory.

A comparative study was designed to evaluate the identification (ID) and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) performances of the BD Phoenix Automated Microbiology System (Becton Dickinson Diagnostic Systems [BD], Pont de Claix, France). A total of 305 single clinical isolates were collected, and comparisons were made with routine manual methods in use in our microbiology laboratories. The percentages of correct IDs were 93.