DAO prepress abstract   -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/dao03851

ABSTRACT: Biomarkers in blood are useful for assessing health and welfare in animals. This study evaluates the agreement among three point-of-care testing (POCT) instruments (Seamaty SMT-120VP, Mnchip Pointcare V2/V3 and Zoetis Vetscan VS2 analyzer) on Atlantic salmon Salmo salar. A repeatability study investigated internal measurement variation. In total 60 adult plasma samples were analyzed simultaneously using different rotors with multiple biomarkers. A comparison between blood and plasma was conducted on 35 blood samples. Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient was <0.9 for all analyte comparisons between the three POCT except for bile acids, therefore the McBride strength of agreement was generally poor, and moderate for bile acids. Internal measurement shows low coefficient of variation for most analytes, except for aspartate aminotransferase (Pointcare V2/V3), alanine transaminase (Pointcare V2/V3), blood urea nitrogen (Pointcare V2/V3), and creatinine (both systems). There was high concordance between whole blood and plasma samples for most analytes on both SMT-120VP and Pointcare V2/V3 systems, except for sodium, total bilirubin and tCO₂. This study underscores the necessity for system-specific calibration and validation of POCT systems like Seamaty SMT-120VP and Mnchip Pointcare V2/V3 when used in aquaculture for clinical assessment of Atlantic salmon. The reproducibility study demonstrated that the precision of analysis was acceptable for most analytes. The comparison between whole blood and plasma suggests that whole blood can be used on-site to reduce complexity of analysis. In summary, these systems offer promising tools for rapid on-site health monitoring in salmonid aquaculture, yet they require validation against gold standard methods.