Evaluation of turkey erythrocyte hemagglutination assay for the detection of hepatitis B antigen

Abstract

A recently described hemagglutination test for hepatitis B antigen (HBsAg) using turkey erythrocytes coated with horse antibody to HBsAg purified by affinity column chromatography was evaluated on a comparative basis with 100 HBsAg-positive and -negative serum samples. The turkey erythrocyte hemagglutination test (TEHA) was found to be less sensitive than radioimmunoassay (RIA) but gave far better results than counterimmunoelectrophoresis. Quantitative titration of HBsAg in serial dilutions of the samples appeared to be more reliably performed by TEHA than by RIA. TEHA is a simple and sensitive technique for the detection of HBsAg and may offer several practical advantages over RIA.