Abbott HIV-1 test improvement ‘easier on the patient’

Abbott has reported that some of the difficulties involved in obtaining blood samples form patients can be allayed by the use of its HIV-1 viral load test, which it reports exceeds existing sensitivity while detecting and measuring all known strains of the virus.

The RealTime HIV-1 viral load test has received a supplemental premarket approval from the US Food and Drug Administration that enables the company to market a number of improvements.

One such upgrade is a feature to facilitate the use of smaller amounts of blood to test for HIV-1, with clinicians able to make an analysis with as little as 0.6 ml of plasma.

Timothy Stenzel, medical director at Abbott Molecular, said: “It can be challenging to obtain blood samples from some people, particularly critically ill patients.”

“This improvement will give labs the ability to use a smaller sample size while still maintaining the highest sensitivity and precision of any HIV-1 viral load test.”

He added that this enhancement makes testing for HIV-1 both better for the laboratory and easier on the patient involved.

In January 2007, Abbott reported that its m2000 automated instrument systems can deliver test results speedily and efficiently, with its RealTime HIV-1 and hepatitis C virus tests both using these devices as an in vitro diagnostic indicator of disease to aid antiviral therapy.