Evaluation of a passive microcapsule agglutination test for the screening of human leptospirosis

✍ Scribed by B. Cacciapuoti; L. Ciceroni; Y. Arimitsu; T. Sato; M. Seki

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 440 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0393-2990
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00463096

✦ Synopsis

Microcapsules, absorbed with two mixed antigens -each composed of 3 sonicated leptospira serovars -were developed in the past as a microcapsule agglutination test (MCA-LS) for the screening of clinical leptospirosis.

Fof this study, fifty serum samples, taken at an earlier and at a later stage of illness from 25 Italian in-patients with clinical symptoms of leptospirosis, were tested with both the MCA-LS onedilution test and the microscopic agglutination (MA) test, the confirmatory test for leptospirosis, with 18 leptospira strains circulating in Italy. Compared with MA, MCA-LS showed a sensitivity of 91.7%, and a specificity of 92.3%, including leptospiroses not substained by the diagnostic strains used in the MCA-LS kit.