introduction: macroprolactin is a significant cause of misdiagnosis, unnecessary investigation, and inappropriate treatment in patients with hyperprolactinemia. its frequency has not been clearly established due to technical difficulties in identifying it. most laboratories and clinicians are unaware of macroprolactin interferences in prolactin assays. materials and methods: a comprehensive lit...

BACKGROUND Macroprolactin is an important source of immunoassay interference that commonly leads to misdiagnosis and mismanagement of hyperprolactinemic patients. We used the predominant immunoassay platforms for prolactin to assay serum samples treated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) and establish and validate reference intervals for total and monomeric prolactin. METHODS We used the Architec...

Macroprolactin (MaPRL) - a complex of monomeric prolactin (PRL) with immunoglobulin G, may be a cause of laboratory diagnosed hyperprolactinaemia. To quantify MaPRL, a precipitation with polyethylene glycol may be performed. This method involves calculating of recovery ratio but the cut-off value is not precisely determined. Moreover, it is proposed that the assessment of macroprolactinaemia sh...

As in many other clinical cases, we cannot stress enough the importance of correlating the laboratory results with the patient’s clinical signs and symptoms. Whenever a very high result for prolactin level is seen in the absence of any clinical features of hyperprolactinaemia, a physician should be alerted to the possibility of the patient having a case of macroprolactinaemia. The polyethylene ...