PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Aylur K Ganesh

Publications and source records attributed to Aylur K Ganesh.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

A reliable and inexpensive EasyCD4 assay for monitoring HIV-infected individuals in resource-limited settings.

Serial measurements of absolute CD4+ T-lymphocyte counts are required to initiate and gauge response to therapy and monitor disease progression. Hence, there is an urgent need to evaluate the accuracy and validity of low-cost CD4+ T-cell count assays. Tripotassium EDTA blood specimens from HIV-infected individuals were studied using a novel flow cytometric assay (EasyCD4 assay; Guava Technologies, Hayward, CA) in comparison with standard flow cytometry (FACSCount; Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems, San Jose, CA). The sensitivity, specificity value by EasyCD4 assay in enumerating absolute CD4+ T-cell counts of less than 200 cells/microL were 95% and 100%, respectively. Bland-Altman analysis showed close agreement, with the EasyCD4 assay yielding CD4+ T-cell counts a mean difference of -26 cells/microL (95% confidence interval, -96 to 44 cells/microL) higher than by flow cytometry. Our data suggest that EasyCD4 assay could be a useful alternative assay to conventional flow cytometry, may be appropriate for use in resource-limited settings.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

An inexpensive, simple, and manual method of CD4 T-cell quantitation in HIV-infected individuals for use in developing countries.

CD4+ T lymphocytes are currently the most common surrogate marker indicating immune status and disease progression with HIV infection. The cost of monitoring disease progression and response to therapy is still prohibitively expensive. Flow cytometry is the gold standard for the estimation of CD4+, but the high initial investment for this technology and expensive reagents makes it unaffordable for developing countries like India. We evaluated the Coulter cytosphere assay for quantifying CD4+ T lymphocytes in comparison with the standard method, flow cytometry, in 122 HIV-infected individuals. The correlation coefficient of the cytosphere assay compared with that of flow cytometry for CD4+ T lymphocytes was 0.97 (P< 0.0001), with a confidence interval of 0.95 to 0.98. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the cytosphere assay in enumerating absolute CD4+ T-lymphocyte counts of less than 200/microL were 94.9%, 96.4%, 92.5%, and 97.6%, respectively. This is a simple inexpensive method and has a strong correlation with flow cytometry. Hence, the cytosphere assay can be an alternate to flow cytometry for the estimation of CD4+ T-lymphocyte counts, especially in resource-poor settings of developing countries, for monitoring HIV progression and response to therapy.

CD4 Lymphocyte Count↗