What is the Difference Between Nephelometry and Turbidimetry

The key difference between nephelometry and turbidimetry is that nephelometry is a technique used to determine the levels of blood plasma proteins, whereas turbidimetry is the process of measuring the loss of the intensity of transmitted light coming from the scattering effect of suspended particles.

Nephelometry and turbidimetry are two important types of analytical techniques useful in immunology and other applications.

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Nephelometry
3. What is Turbidimetry
4. Nephelometry vs Turbidimetry in Tabular Form
5. Summary – Nephelometry vs Turbidimetry

What is Nephelometry?

Nephelometry is a method of determining the level of several blood plasma proteins. This technique is very useful in immunology. E.g. the total level of antibody isotypes, including immunoglobulin M, immunoglobulin G, and immunoglobulin A.

This method is significant in quantifying free light chains in multiple myeloma and similar diseases because it is important to classify the diseases and monitor the diseases when a patient is treated with skewing of the ratio between kappa and lambda light chains.

Nephelometry is carried out by measuring the scattered light at an angle from the sample that we are going to measure. It also has wide uses in clinical laboratories since it is relatively easy to automate. The principle here is the dilute suspension of small particles is able to scatter light that is passing through the sample (without absorbing).

Besides, this technique is useful in detecting antigens or antibodies in the body, but it generally tends to run with antibodies because the reagent and the antigen of the patient are unknown factors. Moreover, there are two major types of nephelometry; the are endpoint nephelometry and kinetic nephelometry. An endpoint nephelometry test is carried out by allowing the antibody or the antigen to react with the corresponding particle until completion. Kinetic nephelometry is carried out by measuring the rate of scattering right after adding the reagent.

What is Turbidimetry?

Turbidimetry is the method of measuring the loss of intensity of the light that is transmitted because of the scattering effect of particles that are suspended in it. In this method, the light that is passed through a filter can create a light with a known wavelength, and it is then passed through a cuvette. The cuvette contains the sample solution. Besides, a photoelectric cell tends to collect the light that is passing through the cuvette. Then it gives a measurement for the absorbed light content.

We can use turbidimetry to determine the number of cells in a suspension in the field of biology. We can describe turbidity as an optical look of a suspension created from radiation in relation to the scattered and absorbed wavelength.

A method derived from turbidimetry is immunoturbidimetry, which is a significant tool in the broad diagnostic field of clinical chemistry. We can use this tool to determine the serum proteins that cannot be detected from classical clinical chemistry methods.

What is the Difference Between Nephelometry and Turbidimetry?

Nephelometry and turbidimetry are two separate techniques in analytical chemistry having similar applications, such as in immunology. The key difference between nephelometry and turbidimetry is that nephelometry is a technique used to determine the levels of blood plasma proteins, whereas turbidimetry is the process of measuring the loss of the intensity of transmitted light coming from the scattering effect of suspended particles.

Below is a summary of the difference between nephelometry and turbidimetry in tabular form for side-by-side comparison.

Summary – Nephelometry vs Turbidimetry

The key difference between nephelometry and turbidimetry is that nephelometry is a technique used to determine the levels of blood plasma proteins. Meanwhile, turbidimetry is the process of measuring the loss of the intensity of transmitted light coming from the scattering effect of suspended particles.