Comparison of five commercial western blot kits for detection of human immunodeficiency virus 1

Twenty-two human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) enzyme immunoassay (EIA) reactive and two non-reactive patient specimens were analyzed using five commercially available HIV-1 Western blot kits. The percentage of HIV-1 bands detected by each kit was recorded. The differences between pairs of kits were not found to be statistically significant at the 0.05 level. All EIA reactive specimens were reconfirmed as reactive by each Western blot kit tested.