A comparison of two APTT reagents which use silica activators

The Ortho activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) reagent, Thrombosil 1 (TS), was compared to the General Diagnostics automated APTT reagent (GD). TS produced more precise results over a 38-day period of testing a normal control plasma, indicating that the upper limit of the normal range could be more precisely set with TS. This normal range was better represented if the normal values with both reagents were logarithmically transformed before calculating the mean +/- 2 SD. TS was more sensitive to plasma which had been heparinized in vitro. This was also demonstrated in vivo by the testing of 100 plasmas from heparinized patients. On testing of in-vitro dilutions of normal plasma with factor-deficient plasmas, TS was more sensitive to decreasing levels of factors VIII, IX and XI but less sensitive to decreasing factor XII. This was demonstrable in vivo in 71% of cases with plasmas from factor-deficient patients. GD was more sensitive to the lupus anticoagulant in most cases.