Conventional immunoassay tests are analog in nature, confirming the diagnosis
of disease (Yes/No) or the presence of a foreign substance (Yes/No).
Function Immunoassay Technology (FIT) diverges from this convention by designing tests to
evaluate and gauge the functional performance of an organ or organ system by
sequential measurements of exogenously administered compound thereby allowing
the calculation of a kinetic parameter. FIT thus combines the techniques of
immunoassay as a readout system with the concept of pharmacokinetics to measure
the kinetic behavior of an administrated compound or set of compounds.
Limits on the rate of clearance or accumulation of the compound as measured in
biological material provide the input parameters to calculate a functional index
for the organ-of-interest.
BioPAL has applied FIT to develop methods to measure glomerular filtration
rate (FIT-GFR) and effective renal plasma flow (FIT-RPF). FIT is a patent
pending technology and additional
FIT-based tests are under development.