Journal of Clinical Medicine
Assay Performance and Quantification Limits in Perioperative Serum Cytokine Measurement After Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Secondary Laboratory Analysis
By Arabela-Codruta Cocea, Dan-Cristian Munteanu, Mădălina Popa and 1 others.
Abstract
Background
Commercial cytokine assays may not span the concentrations encountered in perioperative serum. We examined the extent to which reconstructed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay data from a total hip arthroplasty cohort could support temporal biological interpretation when most IL-6 and IL-10 results were below the validated quantification range.
Methods
This post hoc secondary laboratory analysis used serum collected preoperatively and at 6, 24, and 48 h later from 44 of 52 participants in a single-centre three-arm trial. Five cytokines were measured by sandwich ELISA. Optical-density (OD) values were reconstructed from scanned reports and triangulated across three transcriptions. OD trajectories were summarised with within-patient rank tests as exploratory assay-signal observations. Five omnibus tests were Holm-adjusted across analytes. Detectability was analysed as a paired binary outcome using Cochran’s Q and exact McNemar comparisons with Holm correction. Clinical characteristics, acute-phase markers, and missing-data structure were evaluated in the assayed subcohort.