Performance of an immunoradiometric assay of erythropoietin and results for specimens from anemic and polycythemic patients.

We evaluated a new commercially available two-site immunoradiometric assay (IRMA; BioMérieux 125I-EPO CoatRIA) for erythropoietin (EPO) in human serum. The precision (CV) was 4.1% intra-assay and 8% interassay for a serum pool with an EPO concentration of 17 int. units/L; the detection limit was 0.5 int. unit/L, one order of magnitude lower than by classical radioimmunoassay (RIA), although standardization of IRMA and RIA were similar. Results by both IRMA and RIA are compared for normal subjects, patients with nonrenal noninflammatory anemias, patients with beta-thalassemia major, hemodialysis patients, and patients with primary or secondary polycythemia. Values by IRMA compared well with those by RIA in the upper area of the range; IRMA and RIA values for EPO show parallel expected variations with the degree of anemia. However, because of its greater sensitivity and specificity, we consider the IRMA more appropriate than RIA for investigating patients with sub-normal EPO concentrations.