Clinicians must be aware that heterophilic antibodies can cause false-positive troponin elevations in modern immunoassays, which may lead to unnecessary and potentially dangerous invasive procedures.
Heterophilic antibody interference may cause false troponin elevations in discordant cases; extends known immunoassay vulnerabilities but leaves broader prevalence open.
The determination of plasma level of cardiac troponin I or T is recommended by the French Health Authority to diagnose myocardial infarction. However false positive results associated with the presence of heterophilic antibodies are described in the literature. This interference can lead to unnecessary invasive procedures, sometimes even dangerous. We report the case of a patient with falsely elevated troponin Ic concentration due to these antibodies. This case is characterized by the intensity of the abnormalities, the diversity of biological parameters affected and the discrepancies between biology and clinic. This case report confirms that modern immunoassays are always affected by heterophilic antibodies. We present here an example of such interference.
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Sanmartin et al. (2013) studied this question.
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