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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, September 1998, p. 2423-2427, Vol. 36, No. 9
0095-1137/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of Three Commercial Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays for Diagnosis of Chagas' Disease

Walter M. R. Oelemann,1,* Maria Da Glória M. Teixeira,1 Giovani C. Veríssimo Da Costa,1 José Borges-Pereira,2 José Adail F. De Castro,3 José Rodrigues Coura,2 and José Mauro Peralta1

Institute of Microbiology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,1 and Department of Tropical Medicine, Oswaldo Cruz Institute, FIOCRUZ,2 Rio de Janeiro, and Department of Parasitology, Federal University of Piauí, Teresina,3 Brazil

Received 23 February 1998/Returned for modification 6 April 1998/Accepted 2 June 1998

Chagas' disease is a common cause of morbidity in Latin American countries. In Brazil, naturally occurring transmission of its etiologic agent, Trypanosoma cruzi, has been almost completely abolished through effective control programs aimed at the triatomid insect vector. Thus, transfusion of blood from infected donors has become the major route for contracting Chagas' disease due to the socioeconomically motivated migration of residents from areas where the disease is endemic to the larger urban centers. Therefore, the employment of screening tests is mandatory for all blood banks throughout the country. We compared the diagnostic performances of three commercially available screening assays used in routine testing in Brazilian blood banks: the Abbott Chagas antibody enzyme immunoassay (Abbott Laboratórios do Brasil, São Paulo), the BIOELISACRUZI kit (Biolab-Mérieux, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and the BIOZIMA Chagas kit (Polychaco S.A.I.C., Buenos Aires, Argentina). The evaluation was performed with sera obtained from chagasic patients and healthy residents of four different areas in Brazil where Chagas' disease is either endemic or emergent and where clinical manifestations of the disease and circulating parasite strains vary. The results obtained with each kit were compared to matched in-house enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunofluorescence assay data obtained for each sample. Depending on the area under investigation, the three commercial kits produced specificity values between 93.3 and 100.0%, sensitivity values between 97.7 and 100%, and accuracies ranging from 93.6 to 100.0%.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Departamento de Imunologia, Instituto de Microbiologia, UFRJ-CCS, Ilha do Fundão, 21941-590 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Phone: 0055-21-270 0990. Fax: 0055-21-560 8028. E-mail: IMIMWAL{at}MICROBIO.UFRJ.BR.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, September 1998, p. 2423-2427, Vol. 36, No. 9
0095-1137/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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