Diagnosis of typhoid fever by the detection of anti-LPS & anti-flagellin antibodies by ELISA.
In a developing country like ours where typhoid fever is endemic and there are very few microbiology laboratories to provide diagnosis by culture, a search for non culture techniques for rapid and reliable diagnosis continues. The Widal test has a low sensitivity. We have attempted to adapt the well established enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique to provide a serological test of better sensitivity and specificity. The ELISA described here to detect anti-LPS antibodies was found to have a sensitivity of 89.4 per cent and a specificity of 94.9 per cent. The sensitivity for the antiflagellin ELISA was 68.1 per cent and specificity was 97.4 per cent. The likelihood ratio was 17.5 for anti-LPS ELISA and 26.2 for the anti-flagellin ELISA. Considering the positivity of either one ELISA as diagnostic, the sensitivity was 93.6 per cent and specificity was 94.9 per cent.
Department of Microbiology, Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore.
M V
MV
Jesudason
G
G
Sridharan
R
R
Arulselvan
P G
PG
Babu
T J
TJ
John
D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000097:blood* / Q000276:immunology; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006801:Humans; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides / Q000276:immunology*; D012485:Salmonella typhi / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D014435:Typhoid Fever / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology
D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides