Parasitology

Biography

Biography: Linda Schoenfeld

Abstract

Cystic (CE) and alveolar echinococcosis (AE) are infectious diseases caused by the tapeworms Echinococcus granulosus and Echinococcus multilocularis, respectively. Imaging techniques such as MRI provide initial indications for diagnosis. CDC guidelines recommend serological tests before using invasive methods. Positive results in a screening assay (ELISA or IIFT) should be re-tested in a confirmatory blot-based assay. For a pre-characterized serum panel encompassing 107 echinococcus patients as well as 50 blood-donors and 50 tumor patients (University of Bern, Switzerland) results of Anti-Echinococcus ELISA (IgG) and a unique blot-technique (Anti-Echinococcus EUROLINE-Western blot (IgG)) were evaluated. Additional 122 sera of patients with other parasite infections were tested to measure cross-reactivity of the assays. Investigation of the above mentioned sera revealed a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 93% for Anti-Echinococcus ELISA whereas a sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 100% for Anti-Echinococcus EUROLINE-WB were obtained. The two tests showed excellent reactivity to both AE and CE patient sera. Use of species-specific recombinant antigens in Anti-Echinococcus EL-WB additionally enables the physician to differentiate between E. granulosus and E. multilocularis infections in more than 80% of the examined cases. 22% of that other parasitic infection samples showed cross-reactivity in the Anti-Echinococcus ELISA which was in only 6% of the cases confirmed by the Anti-Echinococcus EUROLINE-WB and only for Anisakis and Ascaris infections, indicating the usefulness of confirmatory tests for positive reacting sera in screening assays. Combination of the ELISA and the EUROLINE-WB, thus, provides excellent sensitivity and specificity for identification and differentiation of echinococcosis.