Evaluation of the Automated Indirect Immunofluorescence Test for Antinuclear Antibodies

The performance of the automated indirect immunofluorescence system was compared with the manual method for detection of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) from 354 clinical serum samples. We compared the results (negative or positive), ANA patterns, and titers for the two methods. The coincidence rates for ANA positive and negative samples were 93.4% and 98.7%, respectively. The coincidence rates for single patterns, mixed patterns, and the final titers were 85.1%, 87.6%, and 87.6%, respectively. The homogeneous, speckled, cytoplasmic, centromere, multiple nuclear dots, and nucleolar pattern coincidence rates were 79.3%, 83.0%, 87.8%, 72.7%, 50%, and 56.3%, respectively. The automated indirect immunofluorescence system had acceptable accuracy for detection of ANA.