Immunoassay of theophylline by latex particle counting.

We set up an immunoassay by particle counting for theophylline. Theophylline concentration is assayed by its capacity to inhibit the agglutination of theophylline coated latex particles by a specific monoclonal antibody, the agglutination being enhanced by a rabbit anti-mouse IgG antiserum. The dose range is 2-64 mg/L. The cross-reactions observed with caffeine (0.3%), theobromine (0.2%), 3-methylxanthine (0.7%) and 8-chlorotheophylline (2%) are very good when compared with other published methods. Within and between-run precisions measured at low, medium and high level of the calibration curve show coefficients of variation ranging from 3.9% to 9.5%. Our assay was correlated with the Fluorescence Polarization Immunoassay (FPIA) and a correlation coefficient of 0.96 was determined for 89 samples.