Irish user report: Cork is bringing Calprotectin testing in-house on Abbott Architect

Since October 2017 the Mercy University Hospital Cork is using the immunoturbidimetric BÜHLMANN fCAL® turbo on their Abbott Architect and is no longer depending on sending faecal samples to a referral laboratory which uses a fluoroenzyme-immunoassay.

Mary O’Connell from the Biochemistry Department at the Mercy University Hospital Cork performed a Method Comparison between the BÜHLMANN fCAL® turbo and the method used at the referral laboratory:

“The medical team concluded that the fCAL turbo results correlated very well with the participant’s clinical presentation and stage of IBD. This is important as they use this data along with clinical presentation before referring patients for colonoscopy.”

The main reasons why they started to investigate the options of bringing calprotectin testing in-house was that sending to the referral laboratory was quite expensive and the turnaround was up to 6 weeks. The BÜHLMANN fCAL® turbo was an attractive option since it gives results significantly faster than ELISA and other methods with no additional equipment, service contracts or staff training, and absolutely no problems were observed putting faecal extracts on the Architect.