Increased sensitivity of diagnostic latex agglutination tests in an ultrasonic standing wave field

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Abstract

A technique is described which increases the sensitivity of latex agglutination tests for soluble and particulate antigens. The levels of detection of tests for C-reative protein and E. coli 0157 respectively have been improved by ×256 and ×1024 compared with the standard test procedure of sample rotation on a test-card. This new method combines dilution of the test latex particles, a 2 min sample treatment in the ultrasonic standing wave field of a tubular piezo-electric transducer and subsequent examination by video-microscopy. Ultrasonic treatment is required to achieve increased localised concentrations of the latex particles in the standing wave field, and dilution of the latex is a critical requirement to allow agglutination to occur at low antigen concentrations.

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    Present address: Wound Healing Research Unit, Department of Surgery, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff CF4 3XN, UK.

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