title: Serological diagnosis of syphilis: comparison of the Trep-Chek IgG enzyme immunoassay with other screening and confirmatory tests.
abstract: The Trep-Chek IgG Enzyme Immunoassay (Trep-Chek IgG EIA) was evaluated with 604 serum specimens submitted for syphilis serology from patients across Canada against a battery of conventional syphilis serology tests, including the Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) test, the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) test, the Treponema pallidum passive particle agglutination (TP-PA) test, the fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption (FTA-ABS) test, and the newer confirmatory test, Innogenetics INNO-LIA. On the basis of a consensus result derived from these serologic tests, 34 specimens were found to be syphilis-positive (28 active and six past infections), and 570 were syphilis-negative (including 12 biological false positives). When the test results on this set of samples were compared to those obtained with the conventional tests RPR, VDRL, TP-PA, and FTA-ABS, the sensitivity and specificity of the Trep-Chek IgG EIA were found to be 85.3% and 95.6%, respectively. Without further evaluation, we do not recommend use of the Trep-Chek IgG EIA as a stand-alone test for either screening or confirmatory syphilis serology.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria, Syphilis Serology, and Vaccine Preventable Bacterial Diseases, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. raymond_tsang@phac-aspc.gc.ca
authors.forename: Raymond S W
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Tsang
authors.forename: Irene E
authors.initials: IE
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Allan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lau
authors.forename: Pam
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sawatzky
mesh_terms: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000097:blood*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000097:blood*; D013588:Syphilis Serodiagnosis / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D007074:Immunoglobulin G