Calculation of radioimmunoassay standard curves

A method for calculating radioimmunoassay standard curves, based on the theory of Ekins et al., is described. Because a four-parameter model is used, nonlinear standard curves are the result. The calibration curve is fitted to the measured standard points by means of a weighted least-squares method. The program based on this model can be easily processed on a desk-top calculator. For all 250 runs of six different assays, very good standard curves could be obtained. The mean deviation between the concentrations of the standard points and the corresponding calculated values was about 6%. In 26% of the cases it could be shown that the model we describe gave significantly better results than did two simpler ones.