Abbott ARCHITECT VS. BioSite Triage.

In the 2. edition of Clinical and Laboratory Medicine Vol. 49 a group of Doctors from Liegé made a comparison of the two systems.

First they praise the ARCHITECT system….

Then:

“Triage NGAL could be an alternative as the Triage meters can be used in a ward. Unfortunately, the analytical performance of this machine did not fulfil our expectations. Indeed, the method showed important analytical limitations, the primary one being the high variation around the proposed cut-off for the reference value (below 130 mg/L).

Analytical validation of NGAL 341 urement using the cut-off value is thus questionable with the Triage NGAL which shows a high analytical variability around this cut-off value.

Moreover, it must be remembered that this high variation was observed when the analyses were performed under optimal conditions, with a well-trained and experienced technician. In the hands of many different inexperienced nurses in a crowded ward, this variability could be worse.”

This is a fatal blow to Alere’s  Triage sytem. More or less.

It should be noted that in the test, they did not take the by Bioporto “protected NGAL Cut-off area” into consideration, so eventhough the ARCHITECHT might be much better than the Triage, we still think its more or less useless under the given circumstances.