Topic summary

Coming back to: Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches: the specificity problem

Analytics › Home & field testing third-party testing LOD & LOQ documentation quality ELISA Solved

This is a generated summary. It shows the 9 most-liked posts from a topic of 90, in their original order, with the accepted answer included where one exists. It is a reading aid and it will miss nuance — the full topic is the record.

p.novotnyTL2Regular Solution18 Apr 2026#4

m.balogun, post #3: Building on post #2 rather than restating it. Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches came up in a thread eighteen months ago and was answered well. I cannot find it, which is itself the problem, so here is the reconstruction. Go to post

A note on how Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches gets discussed rather than on Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches itself: the confident posts get the replies and the careful ones get ignored, and the careful ones have been right more often.

7 likes in reply to #3 3mo

e.steinerTL223 Apr 2026 · edited#7

Post #5 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.

The arithmetic on Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches is the easy part and it is where the errors are, which is an uncomfortable combination. Show your working and someone will catch it.

25 likes 3mo

p.krastevTL224 May 2026#29

a.cardoso, post #20: Post #19 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different. On Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches: the maintained page in the documentation commons covers the general case with citations and a review date, which is more reliable than any reply here including this one. Go to post

Building on post #28 rather than restating it.

An update on my earlier Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches post: the pattern held for another six weeks and then stopped, which I did not predict and cannot explain.

32 likes in reply to #20 2mo

VThorvaldsenTL3Regular30 May 2026#34

Adding the boring version of Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.

Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.

31 likes 2mo

t.pereiraTL217 Jun 2026#50

Lundqvist, post #44: Post #40 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction. Where I would push back on the Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches consensus is the confidence, not the direction. The direction looks right. The confidence is borrowed. Go to post

Answering the question post #48 raises rather than the one it answers.

Lateral-flow devices: like a rapid COVID test. They have a reagent strip and produce a colour result. They are quick but not precise and not intended for quantitative work.

Not disagreeing with anyone above, just adding the bit I keep having to look up.

29 likes in reply to #44 1mo

y.rahimiTL226 Jun 2026#58

Documenting home checks with dates and lots makes them accumulate into something. Undocumented ones evaporate and get remembered selectively.

33 likes 1mo

blank_injectionTL2Analytical chemist30 Jun 2026#62

The right question for any home test is: what physical quantity does it measure, and what would have to be true for that quantity to answer your question? Most disappointment comes from skipping it.

Written in the hope of being told what I have missed.

31 likes 28d

b.jankowiakTL3Regular12 Jul 2026#74

f.laurent, post #41: Lateral-flow and colorimetric approaches looks different depending on whether you are reading the primary literature or the summaries of it, and the difference is not in our favour. Go to post

The tare problem is the catch with weighing: vial-to-vial glass mass varies, so the useful measurement is the spread across a consignment rather than an absolute figure.

The mechanism is plausible, which is not the same as established.

29 likes in reply to #41 16d

e.steinerTL224 Jul 2026#86

Colorimetric tests: colour intensity correlates with concentration, but the relationship is non-linear at extremes and the correlation depends on the exact conditions (pH, temperature, timing). Reading the colour visually introduces subjectivity.

Written quickly, so the reasoning may be tighter than the wording.

28 likes 4d

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