El-Safi SH, Abdel-Haleem A, Hammad A, El-Basha I, Omer A, Kareem HG, Boelaert M, Chance M, Hommel M. Field evaluation of latex agglutination test for detecting urinary antigens in visceral leishmaniasis in Sudan.
East Mediterr Health J 2003;
9:844-55. [PMID:
15748081]
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Abstract
A latex agglutination test to detect urinary antigens for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) was studied. In 204 patients with suspected VL, KAtex had a sensitivity of 95.2% with good agreement with microscopy smears but poor agreement with 4 different serology tests. It was also positive in 2 confirmed VL cases co-infected with HIV. In all K4tex-positive confirmed cases actively followed up after treatment, the test became negative 1 month after completion of treatment. While IC4tex had a specificity of 100% in healthy endemic and non-endemic controls, the direct agglutination test (DAT) was positive in 14% of the KAtex-negative healthy endemic controls. KAtex is a simple addition to the diagnostics of VL particularly at field level and as a complementary test for the diagnosis of VL in smear-negative cases with positive DAT results.
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