ABSTRACT
Cerebrospinal hydatid disease diagnosis may impose some problems as ultrasonography is not applicable and serology may not detect the low antibody titre often associated with intracranial or orbital cystic echinococcosis. Serological tests were performed on 14 cases with intracranial or spinal cystic lesions, out of which 9 were cases of hydatidosis in addition to 26 cases with other parasitic diseases as detected by stool examination. The sensitivity of all tests and antigens used did not exceed 6 out of the 9 positive cases and achieved by the Egl and Eg2 when applied in the ELISA. The specificity of this technique using the two antigens was 92.3% and 76.9%, respectively. Semi-purified Em1 and purified 44 KDa used in the ELISA, crude Egl used for the CIEP and the crude commercial antigen of the IHAT, all gave lower sensitivities than the former two antigens; yet their specificities amounted to 100%. It was concluded that for diagnosis of cerebrospinal hydatidosis the home-prepared EgI antigen is recommended in the ELISA system as it is relatively easily prepared from available resources to be supplemented with radio-imaging techniques, especially magnetic resonance imaging and/or MR spectroscopy; the latter being very helpful in clearly differentiating various types of intracranial cysts