Clinical utility of a competitive ELISA to detect antibodies against Treponema pallidum

Screening for Treponema pallidum infection is carried out on a large human population. To reduce costs, fewer tests which still offer adequate sensiti vity and specificity could be performed. We studied the reliability of a no vel indirect ELISA method to test for this infection, Several panels of ser a were used that corresponded to 40 primary infections (group 1), 13 recurr ences (group 2), 348 latent infections (group 3), 5 samples with anticardio lipin antibodies (group 4), 15 samples from patients with Lyme borreliosis (group 5), and 400 samples from blood donors and healthy pregnant women (gr oup 6). The ELISA showed a global sensitivity and specificity of 100 and 99 .5%, respectively, Our evaluation shows that Enzygnost Syphilis is a sensit ive, specific, and simple test to screen for this infection. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 14.83-86, 2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.