title: Kinetics of circulating antibody response to Trichomonas vaginalis: clinical and diagnostic implications.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Persistence of antibodies against pathogens after antimicrobial treatment is a marker of therapy failure or evolution to a chronic infection. The kinetics of antibody production decrease following antigen elimination is highly variable, and predicting the duration of soluble immunity in infectious diseases is often impossible. This hampers the development and use of immunoassays for diagnostic and seroepidemiological purposes. In the case of Trichomonas vaginalis infection, the kinetics of antibody levels decrease following therapy has never been studied. We thus investigated the clearance of circulating anti-T. vaginalis IgGs after pharmacological treatment in patients affected by trichomoniasis.
  
  
  METHODS
  18 female patients affected by acute trichomoniasis were enrolled in this study. After metronidazole therapy administration, subjects were followed up monthly up to 5 months, and serum levels of anti-T. vaginalis IgGs were measured by ELISA.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We showed that a successful therapy is characterised by a relatively fast decline of specific antibodies, until turning into negative by ELISA in 1-3 months. In a few patients we observed that the persistence of anti-T. vaginalis antibodies was associated with an evolution to chronic infection, which may be due to treatment failure or to reinfection by untreated sexual partners.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results describe the direct correlation between the decline of a specific humoral anti-T. vaginalis response and an effective antimicrobial therapy. These findings may facilitate the follow-up approach to circumvent limitations in developing new diagnostic tools and techniques routinely used in microbiology laboratories to assess the presence of T. vaginalis in clinical samples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Parasitology, Huè University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Huè City, Vietnam.
authors.forename: Phuong Anh
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Ton Nu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rappelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dessì
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Huè University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Huè City, Vietnam.
authors.forename: Vu Quoc Huy
authors.initials: VQ
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
authors.forename: Pier Luigi
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Fiori
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000913:Antibodies, Protozoan / Q000097:blood*; D000981:Antiprotozoal Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000097:blood; D007700:Kinetics; D008795:Metronidazole / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014245:Trichomonas Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology; D014246:Trichomonas vaginalis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D014621:Vagina / Q000469:parasitology*
chemical_list: D000913:Antibodies, Protozoan; D000981:Antiprotozoal Agents; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D008795:Metronidazole
keywords: ANTIBODIES; DIAGNOSIS; METRONIDAZOLE; TRICHOMONAS; VAGINAL MICROBIOLOGY