Serological diagnosis of syphilis: comparison of the Trep-Chek IgG enzyme immunoassay with other screening and confirmatory tests

FEMS Immunol Med Microbiol. 2007 Oct;51(1):118-24. doi: 10.1111/j.1574-695X.2007.00289.x.

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.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antibodies, Bacterial / blood*
  • Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
  • Humans
  • Immunoenzyme Techniques / methods*
  • Immunoglobulin G / blood*
  • Syphilis Serodiagnosis / methods*

Substances

  • Antibodies, Bacterial
  • Immunoglobulin G