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Original Articles
Assessment of Upper Limit of Normal of Antistreptolysin O of School Children in Chungnam Province by Two Quantitative Assays
Seon-Ju Kim
Department of Clinical Pathology, Gyeongsang National University College of Medicine, Jinju, Korea
Vol.26 Num.2 (p139~144)
Backgrounds: Antistreptolysin O (ASO) test is essential to diagnose Streptococcus pyogenes infections and their sequelae. Although the upper limit of normal (ULN) of ASO in healthy children is needed to interpret the patient's status exactly, it is not known yet in Korea.
Methods: The author measured ASO concentrations by quantitative assay, Array Protein System (Beckman, CA, USA) nephelometry on 237 healthy elementary school children in Chungnam Province who had no symptoms or signs of upper respiratory tract infections. Of those children, 213 were also analyzed ASO by Hitachi-747 (Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan) autoanalyzer.
Results: Although the distribution patterns of ASO were somewhat different between the two quantitative assays, the ULN of ASO was similarly calculated as 501 IU/mL by Array Protein System and 499 IU/mL by Hitachi-747.
Conclusion: The assessed ULN of ASO of children in Chungnam Province was about two and half times higher than the currently used ULN of ASO, 200 IU/mL and was almost same value regardless of assay methods.
Keywords : Antistreptolysin O, Upper limit of normal, Quantitative assays