Validity of a new immunochromatographic test in detection of Toxoplasma gondii in cancer patients

Rita Wassef, Raafat Abdel-Malek

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Screening of toxoplasmosis in cancer patients is mandatory especially before starting treatment to guard against life-threatening disseminated disease. Diagnosis of toxoplasmosis rely mainly on serology. The most widely used method for detection of anti-Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) antibodies is the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), being available and reliable. Immunochromatographic tests (ICT) attracted a lot of attention recently being one of the high quality, rapid and easy to perform tests. Available data comparing the per- formance of ICT versus ELISA techniques have yielded inconsistent results and none compared their performance among the immunocompromised cancer patients. There- fore, we designed this study to compare the performance of a new ICT (the OnSite Toxo IgG/IgM Combo Rapid test) and ELISA techniques for the detection of anti-T. gondii antibody as a tool for screening for toxoplasmosis among cancer patients in Cairo-Egypt. Among 180 cancer patients, a total of 110 patients (61.1%) were positive for anti-T. gondii antibodies by one or both methods. Agree- ment between both methods was found in 78.8% of the samples. By using ELISA technique as a gold standard test for the detection of anti-T. gondii antibodies, our results showed 87.5% specificity and 74% sensitivity of ICT technique. Moreover, our results proved that ICT is more sensitive in detecting lower level of antibodies than ELISA, that makes it preferable as a screening test for the immunocompromised patients.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)83-86
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of Parasitic Diseases
Volume43
Issue number1
Early online date30 Nov 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 5 Mar 2019

Keywords

  • ELISA
  • ICT
  • Toxoplasma gondii
  • cancer

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