[Immunoquantification of serum lipoprotein(a) in healthy Ivorian subject: a comparative evaluation of two methods]

We have determined the concentration of Lp(a) in an Ivory Coast population (n=102) using two immunochemical methods: Laurell's monodimensional electro-immunodiffusion (EID) and immunonephelometry (IN). Within-run and between-run precision was respectively 3.07% and 3.97% by IN and 1.52% and 4.48% by EID method. As regard the exactitude, the bias goals in two methods were 3.5% and 3.0% respectively with IN and EID. The two methods were correlated (r=0.84; p=0.006). Mean values of Lp(a) were significantly (p=0.0007) higher by IN than EID: 0.48+/-0.34 g/L versus 0.32+/-0.19 g/L. The Lp(a) distributions were non-Gaussian, skewed towards high values, with median value of 0.47 g/L and 0.32 g/L respectively for IN and EID methods. Therefore, we conclude that although both methods showed a satisfactory precision, and results were correlated, Lp(a) values were higher by INP. Furthermore, mean values of Lp(a) in presumed healthy Ivorian is higher than in Caucasians.