False-positive immunoassay results: a multicenter survey of erroneous immunoassay results from assays of 74 analytes in 10 donors from 66 laboratories in seven countries.

BACKGROUND: Analytical interference in immunoassays can produce serious errors, but it is generally considered rare with modern analytical systems.
METHOD: Blood was collected from 10 donors with illnesses known to be associated with rheumatoid factor. Immunoassays for 74 analytes were performed in 66 clinical laboratories. Each sample was measured in duplicate, and again in duplicate after the addition of a proprietary heterophil blocking reagent, with the laboratory's routinely used reagents and equipment. Reagents were typically supplied by the manufacturers of the closed analytical systems. Both competitive and sandwich immunoassays were investigated.
RESULTS: Overall approximately 8.7% of the 3445 results were considered to be "false positive", many of them seriously so. Twenty-one percent of the erroneously high results (1.8% of all results) were potentially misleading and were corrected by blocking reagent, although 49% of such seriously high results (4.2% of all results) were not. A further 39% of the false-positive results (2.6% of all results) would not necessarily have appeared likely to produce adverse clinical consequences but were substantially lowered by the addition of the blocking reagent.
CONCLUSIONS: Random errors can occur with all types of immunoassays tested and can be difficult to identify even when repeated in another laboratory. Clinicians need to be aware of these limitations.