External quality assessment of point-of-care CD4 testing in Thailand and Southeast Asia

Abstract

© 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. In recent years, the use of point-of-care (POC) CD4 testing technologies has increased dramatically in Thailand and other Southeast Asian (SEA) countries. However, no data regarding external quality assessment of these POC CD4 testing technologies have been reported. The current study aimed to evaluate the performance of POC CD4 testing technologies, including BD FACSPresto, CyFlow, Guava, Muse, and PIMA, used in the participating laboratories in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, and Nepal from 2014 to 2017. The results showed a trend toward an increasing number of participating laboratories using POC CD4 testing technologies between trial numbers 73 and 90. In the laboratories participating in the study, CyFlow technologies were the most used POC CD4 testing technologies. In addition, a trend of decreasing coefficients of variation (%CVs) was demonstrated across the trials, and the final trial showed an overall %CV of 14 %. In trial numbers 73 and 77, 57 % and 68 % of measurements showed standard deviation index (SDI) values ranging between − 1 and + 1. In trial numbers 80 and 90, the proportion of measurements with SDI values ranging between − 1 and + 1 had increased to 100 % and 72 %. These results suggest an improvement in POC CD4 testing in Thailand and other SEA countries.