In an article published in the column “Tips from the Clinical Expert” in the online version of Medical Laboratory Observer (September 2011) entitled “Evaluation of an automated humidity check for instrument-read urinalysis strips”, 3 different brands of urine test strips were tested for their ability to detect humidity exposure which could compromise strip integrity and lead to false results. Of the 3 urine test strips tested, Siemens’ Multistix® 10 SG reagent strip on the CLINITEK Status®+ analyzer was the only system capable of detecting over-exposure to humidity. Using its proprietary Auto-Checks technology, the CLINITEK Status analyzer has the capability to generate a printed error message and will not report potentially erroneous results in these situations.
The strips evaluated were:
- CHEMSTRIP 10 MD (Roche Diagnostics)
- Multistix 10 SG (Siemens)
- Clarity UROCHECK 10SG (Diagnostic Test Group)
According to the results, “the Siemens system has an automatic warning mechanism that prevents results from being reported when humidity exposure is detected. In this controlled study, approximately 98% of the time, this system would have prevented inaccurate reporting and generated an error message instead of generating a result.”
Read the following article on the MLO web site: