The hook effect refers to the prozone phenomenon, also known as antibody excess, or the postzone phenomenon, also known as antigen excess. It is an immunologic phenomenon whereby the effectiveness of antibodies to form immune complexes can be impaired when concentrations of an antibody or an antigen are very high.

The hook effect or the prozone effect is an immunologic phenomenon whereby the effectiveness of antibodies to form immune complexes is sometimes impaired when concentrations of an antibody or an antigen are very high.

Sandwich lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) are limited at high antigen concentrations by the hook effect, leading to a contradictory decrease in the test line (T) intensity and false-negative results. The hook effect is mainly associated with the loss of T, and research focuses on minimizing this effect

The “hook effect” can be overcome by serial dilution of the serum before using an hCG immunoassay, and this is standard practice in many laboratories; however, if a false-negative hCG is suspected, serial dilution of the patient's serum should be performed.

Nov 13, 2020 · Immune reactions are affected by the hook effect, which can cause false-neg. results at high concns. We introduce a hook effect detecting and controllable real one-step immunoassay that can be used to measure a target analyte quant. in undiluted clin. samples.

The hook effect or the prozone effect is a type of interference which plagues certain immunoassays and nephelometric assays, resulting in false negatives or inaccurately low results . The effect can also occur because of antigen excess, when both the capture and detection antibodies become saturated by the high analyte concentration.

What is the Hook Effect? The Hook Effect, also known as the prozone or High Dose Hook Effect, occurs when extremely high concentrations of the target analyte cause a paradoxical decrease in signal detection.

Oct 7, 2014 · In this Pearl, I will discuss what is the hook effect, how the hook effect affects testing results, prozone and postzone effect, and the hook effect in point-of-care testing. The hook effect is one of the most widely recognized limitations of immunoassays.

Dec 1, 2024 · The hook effect is an immunologic phenomenon whereby the effectiveness of antibodies to form immune complexes is impaired when the concentration of an antibody (AB) is very high. The formation of immune complexes stops increasing with greater AB concentrations and then decreases with extremely high concentrations, producing a hook shape on a ...

The hook effect has been demonstrated in all three types of immunoassays, but it most commonly occurs with the two-site IRMA. The hook effect eventuates when higher than expected antigen concentrations produce a paradoxically low assay response. In the early 1970s, Miles et al (21) first described the hook effect in a two-site