Performance evaluation of a commercially available reagent kit for anti- Toxocara canis antibodies detection as compared to an in-house established kit used in Instituto Adolfo Lutz

Abstract

 Human toxocariasis affects humans through the ingestion of embryonated eggs of T.canis. Generally, infections are asymptomatic, but may present severe symptoms as pulmonary, neurological and behavioral disturbs or even visual loss. The human toxocariasis diagnosis is mainly immunological. At Instituto Adolfo Lutz (IAL) the immunodiagnosis of toxocariasis has been performed using an in-house enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (IAL-ELISA). The aim of this study was to verify the performance of a commercially available ELISA kit (Ridascreen), as compared to the IAL-ELISA, employing the Kappa test and relative sensitivity and specificity rates. A total of 170 sera from the routine laboratory of human toxocariasis were analyzed, in parallel, by means of IAL-ELISA and Ridascreen ELISA. Substantial level of agreement and relative rates of sensitivity and specificity of 88% and 75%, respectively, have been observed. Considering these results, we suggest that the commercially available kit evaluated can be used alternatively to the IALELISA for human toxocariasis T diagnosis.