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Comparative evaluation of 14 immunoassays for detection of antibodies to the human T-lymphotropic virus types I and II using panels of sera from Sweden and West Africa by S. Andersson; R. Thorstensson; K. Godoy Ramirez; A. Krook; M. Von Sydow; F. Dias; G. Biberfeld is a Medicine article available to read on EtoBox.

## BACKGROUND: A new generation of assays for the detection of human T-lymphotropic virus types I and II (HTLV-I/II) antibodies has been released. These assays incorporate HTLV-I-and HTLV-II-specific antigens, and some are based on new assay principles. Comparative evaluation data that include these new as well as previous assays are limited. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Fourteen HTLV antibody assays were evaluated by using well-characterized panels of sera from Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, and Sweden. The sera included 127 HTLV-I-positive and 62 HTLV-II-positive specimens, as well as 919 consecutive negative samples. RESULTS: The sensitivity for HTLV-I was 100 percent for all assays, except one, which repeatedly missed one sample. The sensitivity for HTLV-II varied between 86 percent and 100 percent. In general, new-generation assays incorporating HTLV-II-specific antigens, and some of which are based on new assay principles, had a higher sensitivity for HTLV-II than previous assays, which mainly are based on HTLV-I antigens. The specificity was generally higher for new assays than for the previous versions. Testing of Swedish blood donor sera gave higher specificities (94-100%) than

Author

S. Andersson; R. Thorstensson; K. Godoy Ramirez; A. Krook; M. Von Sydow; F. Dias; G. Biberfeld

Publisher

Elsevier Science; John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (Blackwell Publishing); Blackwell Publishing Inc.; Elsevier; Elsevier BV; Wiley (ISSN 0372-1248)

Published

1999

Language

EN

Field

Medicine (Health Sciences)