Evaluation of a passive microcapsule agglutination test for the screening of human leptospirosis.
Microcapsules, absorbed with two mixed antigens--each composed of 3 sonicated leptospira serovars--were developed in the past as a microcapsule agglutination test (MCA-LS) for the screening of clinical leptospirosis. For this study, fifty serum samples, taken at an earlier and at a later stage of illness from 25 Italian in-patients with clinical symptoms of leptospirosis, were tested with both the MCA-LS one-dilution test and the microscopic agglutination (MA) test, the confirmatory test for leptospirosis, with 18 leptospira strains circulating in Italy. Compared with MA, MCA-LS showed a sensitivity of 91.7%, and a specificity of 92.3%, including leptospirosis not sustained by the diagnostic strains used in the MCA-LS kit.
Cacciapuoti
B
B
National Center for Leptospirosis, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy.
Ciceroni
L
L
Arimitsu
Y
Y
Sato
T
T
Seki
M
M
D000372:Agglutination Tests / Q000379:methods*; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000097:blood; D002214:Capsules; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007922:Leptospirosis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D002214:Capsules