The measurement of immune complexes Is it clinically useful?

The discoveries made by academic immunologists must be examined for their possible clinical value, and every few years an in-vitro test applicable to patients is seized upon with particular enthusiasm. Some become laboratory investigations routinely ordered by clinicians, while others fall by the wayside. In the last decade many ways of measuring soluble immune complexes in biological fluids have been worked out (Table I) and applied in health and disease. At first the reports were greeted with enormous enthusiasm but lately there has been growing disillusion about their real importance in many disease processes. Has the pendulum swung too far?