Comparison of commercial kits to measure cytokine responses to Plasmodium falciparum by multiplex microsphere suspension array technology

Table 6 Comparison of the BD and Bender MedSystems Kits

Cytokine	Number of positive observations	Spearman's Rho	GM (pg/ml) BD	GM (pg/ml) Bender Medsystems	% difference in GM between 2 plates (95% CI)	Wilcoxon signed rank test
IFN-γ	23	0.75**	80.00	145.69	45 (62, 21)	0.043
IL-2	13	0.86**	80.87	113.10	29 (57, 19)	0.339
IL-6	70	0.94**	867.64	433.89	99.9 (72,133)	<0.0001
IL-10	20	0.88**	40.84	29.87	37 (-5, 96)	0.002
TNF	44	0.7**	36.83	56.64	35 (51, 13)	0.010

Number of positive observation concordant between both assays, with the Spearman's Rho to test for significant correlations between the assays. **= Spearman's Rho test with significance of P < 0.01, * = Spearman's Rho test with significance of P < 0.05, ^NS = Spearman's Rho test which in non-significant. Geometric means of both assays with the % difference in geometric means. The table also shows Wilcoxon Rank Sum Significant differences in the quantity of cytokine detected in samples between the BD and Bender MedSystems kits. GM = geometric mean.

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