title: The respective advantages of complement fixation and ELISA for routine diagnosis of cytomegalovirus infection.
abstract: The results of CF and ELISA tests for cytomegalovirus performed on 270 sera of hospitalized patients show a positive correlation. As a general rule, ELISA is more sensitive than CF, except for a few sera collected from patients with immunological disorders. When two sequential sera are available, the CF remains a reliable and inexpensive method. But when only one serum can be obtained, the probability of an active CMV infection can be estimated on the IgM/IgG ratio. In 26% of the patients, this ratio was greater than or equal to 1. The ELISA is twice as expensive as the CF test. To reduce its cost, a simple method for preparing ELISA antigen from commercially-obtained CF antigens is described.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003168:Complement Fixation Tests; D003586:Cytomegalovirus Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000032:analysis; D007223:Infant; D016030:Kidney Transplantation
chemical_list: D007074:Immunoglobulin G