What is immunofixation? (IFE)

[Music] what is a muna fixation in terms of other tests that we use once we find out that somebody has a monoclonal protein we'll do what's called an immuno fixation and it's abbreviated in IFE and what an IFE is to tell you what type of monoclonal protein and what type of light chain a person has so this test is usually run at the time a person is diagnosed and then it may be repeated at a time when you want to establish that somebody is in a complete remission and unification is a blood test that is done normally hand-in-hand with the serum protein electrophoresis so when we're doing blood tests to try to identify the protein that's being made by that cancer cell which we call a biomarker we have a test called serum protein electrophoresis that can identify an abnormal amount of one particular type of protein in the blood it's and it's called a spike or an EM spike but it doesn't tell us what type of abnormal protein it is it just tells us that there's an abnormal amount of protein and it gives us a quantity for that protein in a numerical value 3 2 point 1 point 3 or 0 so the immune affects station is going to help give us a name to that protein and tell us if this is an IgA and IgM and IgD or an IgG so it gives us the last name of the type of protein that the cancer cell is making [Music]