Serodiagnosis of human gnathostomiasis.

ABSTRACT

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was evaluated for serodiagnosis of human ocular and visceral gnathostomiasis in comparison to an indirect haemagglutination (IHA) and precipitin (PPT) tests. The ELISA antibody titers were found to range from 1400 to 151,200 against somatic and 1200 to 125,600 against excretory-secretory (ES) antigens. When sera were tested at single dilutions, the ELISA was positive in 7 of 8 gnathostomiasis cases while only 5 and 3 were positive by IHA and PPT respectively. The overall specificity of the ELISA was 96.7% and 97.4% with somatic and ES antigens respectively. Since somatic and ES antigens produced similar ELISA results, either can be used for diagnostic purpose. It was suggested that the ELISA was a reliable serodiagnostic test for human gnathostomiasis.