Clinical Chemistry Email Content Delivery
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Clinical Chemistry 43: 548, 1997;
This Article
Right arrow Extract Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit an electronic Letter to
the Editor about this paper
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bieglmayer, C.
Right arrow Articles by Mustafa, G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Bieglmayer, C.
Right arrow Articles by Mustafa, G.
Related Collections
Right arrow Laboratory Management
Right arrow Endocrinology and Metabolism
(Clinical Chemistry. 1997;43:548.)
© 1997 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Letters

Adhesive Labels Cause High Thyroxine Results

Christian Bieglmayera and Georg Mustafa

Univ. of Vienna Med. School, Clin. Inst. for Med. and Chem. Lab. Diagnostics, Allgemeines Krankenhaus, Währingergürtel 18–20, A 1090 Vienna, Austria
a Author for correspondence.


To the Editor:

Recently, we identified serum samples from seven patients with no clinical signs of thyroidal illness with borderline to normal thyrotropin (TSH) (0.13–2.14 mU/L; TSH-Ultra, Auto-DELFIA; Wallac, Turku, Finland) and normal free thyroxine (FT4) (12–21 pmol/L; FT4-Amerlex MAB; Johnson and Johnson, Amersham, UK) but implausibly high T4 [339–387 nmol/L; ES700; Boehringer Mannheim (BM), Mannheim, Germany]. The results were confirmed by reanalyses with different lots of T4 kits and by BM's new Elecsys system. In addition, BM FT4 was also increased (41–>129 pmol/L). In contrast, these samples yielded normal T4 (70–133 nmol/L) with the IMX (Abbott, Chicago, IL).

After being questioned, the technician explained that the samples had wet the identification labels during overnight storage in the cold because of some undetected hairline cracks in the ES 700 tubes. The technician had transferred these samples into new tubes before analyzing them. Thus, we incubated a serum pool (BM and IMX: 112 nmol T4/L) with adhesive labels. Neither the IMX T4, Amerlex MAB-FT4, or DELFIA TSH results were affected by this procedure. But it caused high BM T4 concentrations with nonlinear dilution behavior of 735–908 nmol/L. Strong interferences by labels were also observed in BM triiodothyronine (T3) and BM progesterone assays. No interference was detected with BM FSH or BM PRL assays.

Our labels, with the adhesive, kindly provided by the manufacturer, are made from thermolabile paper coated with a water-resistant permanent adhesive based on a suspension of latex, esterfied resins, and mineral oil. Further experiments showed that interferences are most likely caused by unidentified components of this adhesive after dehydration with hot air. The identification labels cannot be classified as inert.

Broken blood-collection tubes or test tubes with wet labels are rarely used for analyses, but they may be used in a large routine laboratory if personnel are unaware of the problem. Consequently, we have instructed our technicians to reject all broken tubes, because components of the adhesive labels could influence certain immunologic tests.





This Article
Right arrow Extract Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit an electronic Letter to
the Editor about this paper
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bieglmayer, C.
Right arrow Articles by Mustafa, G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Bieglmayer, C.
Right arrow Articles by Mustafa, G.
Related Collections
Right arrow Laboratory Management
Right arrow Endocrinology and Metabolism

HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS