A comparative study of passive hemagglutination and immunofluorescence methods for the detection of mitochondrial antibodies in sera from patients with liver diseases.

Serum mitochondrial antibodies were capable of demonstration by the passive hemagglutination method (PHA) using sheep red blood cells coated with mitochondrial inner membrane components. Titers of mitochondrial antibodies obtained by PHA were well correlated with the antibody titers by the immunofluorescence method (IF) and the former method was more sensitive than the latter. Of 15 patients with primary biliary cirrhosis, mitochondrial antibodies were detected by PHA in the sera from 14 patients including two patients with negative results by IF. The antibodies were not detected by PHA in any sera from both 30 patients with chronic hepatitis and 26 with liver cirrhosis. In conclusion, PHA could be an useful diagnostic tool for the detection of serum mitochondrial antibodies in the patients who were suspected of primary biliary cirrhosis in spite of negative results by the conventional IF.