Does the Nichols Advantage automated assay provide comparable plasma aldosterone concentration measurements to a standard extraction method in patients with and without chronic renal failure?
The automated Nichols Advantage assay for plasma aldosterone is reliable in patients with normal renal function but shows significant discrepancies compared to standard extraction methods in patients with chronic renal failure.
A variety of clinical conditions present with an abnormality in aldosterone concentration. Primary hyperaldosteronism (PHA), long considered a rare cause of hypertension (5 SD of the residuals), a preHD and a postHD sample from the same patient, were excluded from all calculations. We thank the Supraregional Assay Service Laboratory for Aldosterone and Renin at St. Mary’s Hospital (London), in particular Mike Scanlon, as well as the Department of Chemical Pathology at St. George’s, Univerisity of London for use of their facilities and Nichols Institute Diagnostics for providing us with the reagents.
Hartman et al. (2006) studied this question.