Background: Correct identification of blood borne viral infections, such as hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is crucial in detection and follow up of infection in patients.
Objectives: We evaluated the diagnostic performance of the DiaSorin LIAISON XL (LIAISON XL) for screening of HBV, HCV and HIV infection. In addition, we investigated the variability of the signal-to-cuttoff ratio (S/CO) of the LIAISON XL HIV Ag/Ab assay and it's predictive value in subsequent confirmation of HIV-1 infection.
Study design: We analyzed 16,497 blood samples on which HBV, HCV and HIV screening was performed. We defined A) archived samples previously tested with an arbitrary result in the Abbott ARCHITECT i2000SR system; B) prospectively collected samples which were simultaneously tested on the LIAISON XL and ARCHITECT i2000SR; C) prospectively collected serum samples for HIV testing which were tested solely on the LIAISON XL.
Results: The agreements of HBV-, HCV-, and HIV markers between the two compared systems are remarkably high. Among the samples which were prospectively tested for HIV Ab/Ag on the LIASON XL, 229 (1.6%) were reactive of which 141 (61.6%) could be confirmed. Increasing the signal-to-cutoff value to 4 could increase the positive predictive value (PPV) to 88.1% without decreasing sensitivity.
Conclusions: The LIAISON XL system proved to be an excellent system for diagnosing HBV, HCV, and HIV. Our data for the first time showed that increasing the HIV S/CO ratio was safe and increased the PPV for confirmed HIV infection in the tested population.

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doi.org/10.1016/j.jcv.2018.02.018, hdl.handle.net/1765/105206
Journal of Clinical Virology
Department of Virology

Thai, K., Götz, H., Slingerland, B., Klaasse, J., Schutten, M., & Geurts van Kessel, C. (2018). An analysis of the predictive value of the HIV Ag/Ab screening assay within the performance characteristics of the DiaSorin LIAISON XL for the detection of blood-borne viruses. Journal of Clinical Virology, 102, 95–100. doi:10.1016/j.jcv.2018.02.018