[Clinical usefulness of polyamino acid particle agglutination test for detection of anti-HTLV-I antibody].

: A new artificial carrier particle agglutination test using polyamino acid (polyamino PA) was developed for anti HTLV-I assay. We carried out the comparative study on anti-HTLV-I among polyamino PA, gelatin PA, EIA and WB methods. All of 76 ATL, 20 HAM/TSP, 53 patients with uveitis and 50 HTLV-I carriers were seropositive and 50 HTLV-I non carriers were seronegative with four methods. Eighteen of 503 patients include autoimmune diseases showed seropositive by polyamino PA and gelatin PA. One of 19 seropositives by EIA was false positive. All of 25 sera showed non-specific reaction by the gelatin PA were clearly negative by the polyamino PA. This is due to the fact that the polyamino acid particle has a greater specific gravity as carrier. The final judgement was got within 45 minutes. It was earlier more 30 minutes than the gelatin PA. The polyamino PA is a simple, rapid, sensitive and specific method. Therefore, it is useful for mass screening and clinical diagnosis.