The 2005 Italian Quality Control Study for the evaluation of CD4 cells in centers involved in the treatment of HIV type 1 patients

• Published in: AIDS research and human retroviruses Vol. 23; no. 6; p. 777
• Main Authors: Martini, Federico, D'Offizi, Gianpiero, Girardi, Enrico, Vitale, Alessia, Cimini, Eleonora, Mollicone, Bianca, Vlassi, Crysoula, Aiuti, Fernando
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.06.2007
• Subjects: CD4 Lymphocyte Count; HIV Infections - blood; HIV Infections - therapy; Humans; Italy; Laboratories, Hospital - standards; Quality Control; Reproducibility of Results; Italy
• ISSN: 0889-2229
• DOI: 10.1089/aid.2006.0295

We report the results of an external quality control program, including 17 Italian centers involved in the care of patients infected by HIV, to evaluate CD4 T cell count proficiency and reproducibility. The centers received two commercial stabilized blood preparations, one with "normal" and one with "low" CD4 T cell content. The centers were asked to process the samples two times, 1 week apart, with the same procedure used for samples from HIV patients. Most centers showed a good performance of CD4 frequency and absolute count determinations. In particular, the "low" sample was correctly analyzed by all centers; only two underestimated the "normal" sample CD4 frequency, and only one underestimated the CD4 absolute count by >100 CD4 cells/microl. Overall, our data suggest that most Italian laboratories provide reliable and reproducible results in evaluating CD4 T cells in HIV(+) samples.