Innotrac Aio! a point-of-care or a routine analyzer? Analytical performance and plasma/whole blood comparison

Background and methods: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the analytical performance of the Innotrac Aio! analyzer in measuring the cardiac markers troponin I (Tnl), myoglobin (Myo) and creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), both in lithium heparin plasma and in whole blood. Results: TnI analytical sensitivity was 0.012 mu g/L and the concentration corresponding to CV=10% was 0.036 mu g/L. In healthy subjects, the 99th percentile TnI values were 0.023 and 0.016 mu g/L in whole blood and in plasma, respectively. One hundred samples were tested both in whole blood and in plasma: Tnl-whole-bloods=1.16-plasmaq+0.011, bias=0.18 (95% CI from -0.22 to +0.59); Myo-whole-blood=1.04-plasma -1.93, bias=+1.08 (95% CI from -6.17 to +8.32); CK-MB-whole-blood=1.11-plasma -0.09, bias=+0.96 (95% CI from -0.53 to +2.45). The method comparison with the RxL Dimension analyzer for TnI and Myo gave the following results: TnI AioI =0.30 TnI RxL + 0.00; bias=-5.80 (95% CI from -7.81 to -3.78), Myo Aio! =1.33 Myo RxL + 0.42, bias=+53.09 (95% CI from +38.44 to +67.74). Conclusions: The analytical performance of the Innotrac Aio! analyzer was satisfactory for all three cardiac markers evaluated and, in particular, the TnI method provided sensitive and accurate results. The most important finding in this study is the possibility to perform the tests as either routine or point-of-care analysis, thus overcoming the variability of results obtained employing different methods.