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Interlaboratory Reproducibility of Isoelectric Focusing in Oligoclonal Band Detection

¹ Laboratory of Neuroimmunology, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a, Carattere Scientifico, Neurological Institute, "C. Mondino", University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
² Department of Neurological and, Psychiatric Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

^aAddress correspondence to this author at: Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences, University of Florence, viale Morgagni 85, I-50134 Florence, Italy. Fax 39-055-4224781; e-mail lolli@neuro.unifi.it.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

To the Editor:

Current criteria for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS), an inflammatory neurological disease commonly affecting young adults, include cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis to detect oligoclonal IgG bands (OCB) (1). CSF analysis methods vary substantially, however, and experts in MS and CSF diagnostic techniques addressed the need for standardization led by compiling recommendations (2). External quality control schemes are fundamental steps in standardization processes, particularly in the field of isoelectric focusing (IEF), the recommended technique for OCB detection (1)(2)(3)(4), because many IEF steps may be difficult to standardize (5).

Data from our previous OCB quality control survey showed that participating centers concurred in OCB-positive and OCB-negative sample identification, but differed in the numbers of OCBs found (5). We assumed that this lack of reproducibility could lead to false-negative/positive results in critical CSF samples, i.e., samples with few and weak bands. Accordingly, we aimed to produce a more comprehensive survey by . . . [Full Text of this Article]