Diagnostic performance characteristics of rapid dipstick test for Plasmodium vivax malaria

We compared the diagnostic performance characteristics of newly developed m ethod, the rapid dipstick test, which provides colorimetric determination b y developing antibody to the lactate dehydrogenase enzyme of parasites, wit conventional standard thick-blood film examination. For the rapid test, Op tiMAL commercial kits were used. The results were also evaluated with clini cal findings from patients. The parasites were determined by microscopic ex amination of thick-blood films from 81 patients with vivax malaria from sou theastern Anatolia, Turkey. The OptiMAL test results were found to be negat ive in five patients who were diagnosed clinically and through thick-film t esting as having vivax malaria. There was no false positivity observed with the OptiMAL test. We concluded that this rapid malaria test has a lower le vel of sensitivity than the classical thick-blood-film test for malaria, bu t that these methods have equal specificity.