Clinical reliability of IgG, IgA, and IgM antibodies in detecting Epstein-Barr virus at different stages of infection with a commercial nonrecombinant polyantigenic ELISA
✍ Scribed by J. Gutiérrez; M.J. Vergara; G. Piédrola; M.C. Maroto
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 34 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0887-8013
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✦ Synopsis
We studied the diagnostic reliability of a modification of the Enzygnost EBV test (Behringwerke, Germany) for the detection of IgG, IgA, and IgM antibodies (Abs) in the diagnosis of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) disease. One hundred and twenty-three serum samples were studied: 14 asymptomatic subjects without EBV infection, 48 patients with primary infection, 46 subjects with past EBV infection (11 patients with other acute infections), 8 patients without EBV infection but with other viral infection, and 7 patients with probable acute clonal stimulation of B lymphocytes caused by different microorganisms.
Enzygnost EBV is based on an ELISA test with a pool of viral antigens. In our series the reliability of IgM for the diagnosis of recent primary EBV infection was: sensitivity 100%, specificity 95%, positive predictive value 90.5%, and negative predictive value 100%. The IgG detection with Enzygnost was: sensitivity 98%, specificity 100%, positive predictive value 100%, and negative predictive value 91.7%. Only two subjects had positive IgA. The Enzygnost test is an efficient method for the diagnosis of EBV infection although a few IgM false positives can occur.