TY - JOUR
T1 - Description of an Automated Method for Urea Nitrogen Determination in Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid (BALF) of Neonates and Infants
AU - Pocino, Krizia
AU - Minucci, Angelo
AU - Manieri, Rocco
AU - Conti, Giorgio
AU - De Luca, Daniele
AU - Capoluongo, Ettore Domenico
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) partially recovers both the instilled saline and the alveolar fluid, so-called epithelial lining fluid (ELF), but a correction for the dilution due to the BAL technique itself is needed to know the amount of recovered ELF. In this regard, urea nitrogen may be useful and has been proposed to calculate ELF. The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a new method to measure urea nitrogen in BAL fluid (BALF). We used 19 BALF samples obtained from neonates and infants with different respiratory conditions. The urea nitrogen assay was carried out on Cobas c311 analyzer (Roche Diagnostics). A validation study shows that the method is perfectly linear (R-2 = 0.999), sensitive (limit of detection = 0.055 mg/dL; limit of quantification = 0.16 mg/dL), repeatable (low = 0.15 +/- 0.02, 13.3%; high = 1.80 +/- 0.02, 1.1%), reproducible (low = 0.14 +/- 0.02, 14.2 %; high = 1.76 +/- 0.04, 2.2 %) with accuracy ranging between 93-96%. Our results support the robustness of validated procedure since the described method appears simple, precise, rapid, and suitable for routine analysis. Thus, it may be used to correct concentration of various noncellular BAL components and calculate their ELF amounts in neonates and infants.
AB - Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) partially recovers both the instilled saline and the alveolar fluid, so-called epithelial lining fluid (ELF), but a correction for the dilution due to the BAL technique itself is needed to know the amount of recovered ELF. In this regard, urea nitrogen may be useful and has been proposed to calculate ELF. The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a new method to measure urea nitrogen in BAL fluid (BALF). We used 19 BALF samples obtained from neonates and infants with different respiratory conditions. The urea nitrogen assay was carried out on Cobas c311 analyzer (Roche Diagnostics). A validation study shows that the method is perfectly linear (R-2 = 0.999), sensitive (limit of detection = 0.055 mg/dL; limit of quantification = 0.16 mg/dL), repeatable (low = 0.15 +/- 0.02, 13.3%; high = 1.80 +/- 0.02, 1.1%), reproducible (low = 0.14 +/- 0.02, 14.2 %; high = 1.76 +/- 0.04, 2.2 %) with accuracy ranging between 93-96%. Our results support the robustness of validated procedure since the described method appears simple, precise, rapid, and suitable for routine analysis. Thus, it may be used to correct concentration of various noncellular BAL components and calculate their ELF amounts in neonates and infants.
KW - method validation
KW - urea nitrogen assay
KW - method validation
KW - urea nitrogen assay
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/72375
U2 - 10.1177/2211068214567147
DO - 10.1177/2211068214567147
M3 - Article
SN - 1535-5535
VL - 20
SP - 636
EP - 641
JO - JALA
JF - JALA
ER -