Discriminant analysis of data in enzyme immunoassay

Area of Science:

• Immunology
• Virology
• Biostatistics

Background:

• Accurate determination of positive/negative cut-off values is essential for developing reliable qualitative and quantitative enzyme immunoassays.
• Existing methods for establishing cut-off values may not fully utilize the sensitivity of enzyme immunoassays.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine a robust positive/negative cut-off value for detecting IgG antibodies to measles virus using discriminant analysis.
• To compare the effectiveness of discriminant analysis with traditional methods for cut-off determination.

Main Methods:

• Applied discriminant analysis to data from indirect immunofluorescence assay, hemagglutination inhibition, and enzyme immunoassay for measles virus IgG antibodies.
• Included probability of membership in both antibody-positive and antibody-negative groups for cut-off determination.

Main Results:

• Discriminant analysis demonstrated superior utilization of enzyme immunoassay sensitivity compared to commonly used methods.
• The method highlighted the importance of analyzing both positive and negative sera for accurate cut-off determination.

Conclusions:

• Discriminant analysis provides a more sensitive and informative approach to establishing enzyme immunoassay cut-off values.
• This enhanced method improves the information base for risk assessment and clinical evaluation of measles virus antibody detection.