What are the recent Immunological Diagnostic techniques for Human Leptospirosis?
Polymerase chain reaction is appked to replace serological tests for early diagnosis of human leptospirosis.Diagnosis of Human Leptospirosis is also done by using Monoclonal Antibody-Based Antigen Detection in combined ELISA or any agglutination test.the immunoglobulin M (IgM)-dipstick assay and the indirect hemagglutination assay (IHA), are used to evaluate leptospirosis and compared with standard assays
Immediate detection of human Leptospirosis is by IgM antibody assay by dipstick ELISA.( Integrated diagnostic, Bultimer, Md). After getting positive from the dipstick, you can go for Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT) for conformation of serogroups. You should have knowledge of prevalence of serogroup in your area. Accordingly you have to set up the MAT test with a double dilution starting from 1/50 diluted sera onward with available serogroup candidate will be used as antigen to conform the serogroup. You can also do a PCR for leptospirosis also.
a method easy and faster is MAT, this is considerated the gold test to diagnostic. Then the rest of tests are complementary and more specific.
In the first week , PCR is the test of choice for diagnosis of leptospirosis . Culture is the gold standard , but the results come late to help clinical diagnosis . Culture is valuable for sero-epidemiological purposes to identify the serovars . In the second week , MAT is the gold standard serological test , but is complicated & not easily available in developing countries , where leptospirosis is common . Elisa IgM is a simple , sensitive & specific test , which can be used for rapid diagnosis . Rapid tests such as Latex agglutination test , Lepto dipstick , lepto tek lateral flow & lepto tek dri-dot tests are available .
Therefore, in the first week , PCR followed by Elisa IgM & MAT in the second week , if available would be ideal . In developing countries , non availability of these tests , would require development of simple ,sensitive & specific rapid tests , which is urgently needed . Leptospirosis is under diagnosed in developing countries , because of non availability of simple diagnostic tests .
The recent diagnostic tests are PCR & Rapid diagnostic tests , while culture & MAT are gold standard tests & are older tests .
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Immunology