Pooled patient samples as reference material for D-Dimer.

A low-D-Dimer concentration has a high negative predictive value for thromboembolic events. Actual and proposed applications include exclusion diagnosis of DIC, DVT and pulmonary embolism (1-7), follow up of cancer therapy (8) and diagnosis of abruptio placentae(9). A variety of tests are commercially available. Unfortunately, due to differences in standardization protocols, the cut-off normal/pathological of one test can usually not be used for another(10). As was shown by Nieuwenhuizen, one way to at least reduce these discrepancies is to use patient material as a reference(11). We have used this approach to standardize the latex test Tinaquant a D-Dimer against the ELISA test Asserachrom D-Dimer.