Preparation of urine samples for use in commercial latex agglutination tests for bacterial antigens

The use of latex agglutination (LA) tests for bacterial antigen detection in urine specimens is hindered by troublesome reactions such as nonspecific agglutination. Therefore, procedures such as boiling or membrane filtration of urine specimens are often used before LA testing. We discovered that the composition of the membrane filter used in filtration has a marked effect on the performance of an LA test used for detection of Haemophilus influenzae type b antigen. False-positive LA reactivity was common in urine specimens from pediatric patients that were processed by membrane filtration through certain filters; furthermore, such reactivity also occurred in LA tests for antigens other than those of H. influenzae. A protein present in urine at low concentrations appeared to be responsible for these phenomena.