Immunoassay analysers are used to detect and quantify specific substances in blood and other body fluids such as urine, Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) and saliva. These analysers utilise immunoassay methodologies such as immunoprecipitation, particle immunoassays, immunonephelometry, radioimmunoassay, enzyme immunoassay, fluorescent immunoassay, and chemiluminescent immunoassays1.
Immunoassay analysers are used in clinical laboratories and in hospitals to determine protein, bacterial, or viral toxins, drug concentration, infectious diseases, testing allergy and endocrine hormones, and cardiac markers2.
An automated immunoassay analyser decreases the manual intervention required by the user, to produce test results facilitating in the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of multiple conditions. By being automated the workflow is vastly improved enabling more efficient test result generation.
Immunoassay analysers come in varying sizes dependent on the workload which needs to be processed. Roche Elecsys® immunoassay systems use the fundamental principle of Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) technology to generate test results.
The principle of immunoassay testing is the use of an antibody that will specifically bind to the antigen of interest. The antibodies used in the immunoassay must have a high affinity for the antigen. The antibodies used in the immunoassay can either be monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies2.
Monoclonal antibodies are a type of protein that is made in the laboratory and can bind to certain targets in the body, such as antigens on the surface of cancer cells3. There are many kinds of monoclonal antibodies, and each monoclonal antibody is made so that it binds to very specific antigens and therefore give more accurate and specific results, but these antibodies tend to be more expensive.
Polyclonal antibodies are inexpensive but can recognise different epitopes on an antigen or they can recognise multiple antigens and these antibodies are made using several different immune cells4.
Immunochemistry testing at Roche uses Electrochemiluminescence (ECL), the unique technology behind Elecsys® Immunoassays.
Immunoassays can detect antigens of interest in very low concentrations that cannot be measured by standard tests. Immunoassays are generally quick and specific which enables a clinician to quickly and accurately diagnose a range of diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease6.
Roche have solutions to detect and diagnose a broad range of infectious disease cells, bacteria, viruses and antibodies. In today’s climate, laboratories are faced with tremendous pressure to increase productivity and reduce costs, whilst striving to achieve accurate and reliable results that help improve patient outcomes and quality of care. No matter the size of your laboratory or laboratory network, Roche offers a solution to ensure your clinical chemistry and immunochemistry needs are met.
Roche products enable unrivalled personalisation and standardisation of your laboratory processes, so different systems can be put together to create a custom set-up to suit any laboratory.
Roche helps you achieve timely, efficient, accurate, and reliable results across the whole cobas® platform of analysers. In addition, Roche provides an extensive and expanding immunochemistry test menu so you can help provide patients with the results they need, now and in the future.
