Efficient thyroid disorder diagnosis using Olympus AU3000i immunoassay system

Olympus has introduced a free T3 (fT3) assay in human serum/plasma for its AU3000i immunoassay analyser. In the European markets, the addition of this new competitive immunoassay completes the Olympus thyroid function test panel, which already includes the other thyroid related hormones TSH, fT4, T4 and T3. This means the AU3000i immunoassay system can assist in the efficient diagnosis of any thyroid disorder.

The fT3 assay shows excellent correlation with alternative methods and performs with outstanding analytical specificity against all tested potential cross reactants. Like the rest of the AU3000i thyroid function panel, the new assay is a highly sensitive paramagnetic particle, chemiluminescent immunoassay. The entire thyroid test panel demonstrates superb assay performance under routine conditions, with all assays having proven precision and excellent lot-to-lot consistency of results.

The superior quality of the AU3000i routine thyroid panel is further verified by its ultra-sensitive TSH assays. This assay delivers unrivalled functional sensitivity to fulfil 4th generation criteria; Olympus is the first manufacturer to achieve this on an automated analyser. In addition, the free T4 assay is proven to be exceptionally robust in instances of abnormal binding protein concentrations, such as during pregnancy, steroid therapy and nephrotic syndrome.

"In the European market, the combination of the recently launched AU-CONNECTOR and the completion of the thyroid hormone panel with fT3 further enhances the consolidation of routine immunoassay and clinical chemistry workflow using the Olympus AU system platform," said Dr. Peter Szillat, Product Manager Immunochemistry. "The overriding feature of the Olympus Laboratory concept is the reliable, fast and efficient delivery of high throughput, high quality daily routine analytics."