Open AccessClinical utility of a competitive ELISA to detect antibodies against Treponema pallidum
Author(s) -
Gutiérrez José,
Vergara María José,
Soto María José,
Piédrola Gonzalo,
Maroto María del Carmen
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of clinical laboratory analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.536
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1098-2825
pISSN - 0887-8013
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-2825(2000)14:2<83::aid-jcla8>3.0.co;2-a
Subject(s) - treponema , syphilis , antibody , medicine , immunology , population , primary syphilis , virology , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , environmental health
Screening for Treponema pallidum infection is carried out on a large human population. To reduce costs, fewer tests which still offer adequate sensitivity and specificity could be performed. We studied the reliability of a novel indirect ELISA method to test for this infection. Several panels of sera were used that corresponded to 40 primary infections (group 1), 13 recurrences (group 2), 348 latent infections (group 3), 5 samples with anticardiolipin antibodies (group 4), 15 samples from patients with Lyme borreliosis (group 5), and 400 samples from blood donors and healthy pregnant women (group 6). The ELISA showed a global sensitivity and specificity of 100 and 99.5%, respectively. Our evaluation shows that Enzygnost Syphilis is a sensitive, specific, and simple test to screen for this infection. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 14:83–86, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.