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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, July 2003, p. 612-615, Vol. 10, No. 4
1071-412X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.10.4.612-615.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Comparison of a Dipstick Assay for Detection of Brucella-Specific Immunoglobulin M Antibodies with Other Tests for Serodiagnosis of Human Brucellosis

Encarnación Clavijo,1* Ramón Díaz,2 Ángel Anguita,1 Antonio García,3 Alfonso Pinedo,1 and Henk L. Smits4

Microbiology Unit, HCU Virgen de la Victoria,1 Department of Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Málaga University Málaga,2 Department of Clinical Microbiology, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain,3 KIT Biomedical Research, Royal Tropical Institute/Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT), Amsterdam, The Netherlands4

Received 2 August 2002/ Returned for modification 22 October 2002/ Accepted 26 March 2003

A dipstick assay for the detection of Brucella-specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies was evaluated by studying the serological response of 133 cultures and or serologically confirmed patients with brucellosis in its different stages along with those of 34 healthy controls. As regards patients with illness less than 3 months in duration, 93.1% tested positive by the dipstick assay, a percentage similar to that obtained in the standard serum agglutination test (SAT) (92.0%), somewhat lower than that obtained by culture (100%) and higher than that obtained by IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (80.5%). SAT was the most sensitive test (87.0%) for patients with illness more than 3 months in duration, followed by culture (50%), the dipstick assay (28.3%), and IgM ELISA (7.5%). The results demonstrate that the dipstick assay could well be used in the serodiagnosis of patients with acute brucellosis, as well as to identify patients with a long history of the illness. Under laboratory conditions this test has the advantage of being quick and IgM antibody-specific.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Microbiology Unit, HCU Virgen de la Victoria, Campus de Teatinos, s/n, 29010 Málaga, Spain. Phone: 34 952 64 94 80. Fax: 34 952 13 16 50. E-mail: eclavijo{at}uma.es.

Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, July 2003, p. 612-615, Vol. 10, No. 4
1071-412X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.10.4.612-615.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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