Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus serology in Europe and Uuganda: Multicentre study with multiple and novel assays

✍ Scribed by Octavian Schatz; Paolo Monini; Roberto Bugarini; Frank Neipel; Thomas F. Schulz; Massimo Andreoni; Peter Erb; Maren Eggers; Jürgen Haas; Stefano Buttò; Matthew Lukwiya; Johannes R. Bogner; Svenja Yaguboglu; Julie Sheldon; Loredana Sarmati; Frank Detlef Goebel; Renate Hintermaier; Gisela Enders; Nicolas Regamey; Marion Wernli; Michael Stürzl; Giovanni Rezza; Barbara Ensoli

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 182 KB
• Volume: 65
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0146-6615
• DOI: 10.1002/jmv.2011

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

A multicentre study was undertaken to define novel assays with increased inter‐assay concordance, sensitivity, specificity and predictive value for serological diagnosis of human herpesvirus type 8 (HHV‐8) infection. A total of 562 sera from European and Ugandan human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)‐infected or uninfected individuals with or without Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and blood donors were examined under code by 18 different assays in seven European laboratories. Sera from KS patients and all non‐KS sera found positive by at least 70%, 80%, or 90% of the assays were considered “true positive.” The validity of the assays was then evaluated by univariate logistic regression analysis. Two immunofluorescence assays (IFA) for detection of antibodies against HHV‐8 lytic (Rlyt) or latent (LLANA) antigens and two enzyme‐linked‐immunosorbent assays (ELISA) (M2, EK8.1) for detection of antibodies against HHV‐8 structural proteins were found to be highly concordant, specific, and sensitive, with odds ratios that indicated a high predictive value. When used together, the two IFA (Rlyt‐LLANA) showed the best combination of sensitivity (89.1%) and specificity (94.9%). The performance of these assays indicate that they may be used for the clinical management of individuals at risk of developing HHV‐8 associated tumours such as allograft recipients. J. Med. Virol. 65:123–132, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.