This study has evaluated the performance of a rapid immunochromatographic test (ICT) device in detecting antibodies to Dengue virus (DENV) in a tertiary hospital in South India. Sera from hospital attendees, with requests for DENV antibody testing, were tested with the Panbio Dengue Duo Cassette and a reference antibody capture assay for the detection of IgM (Dengue IgM capture ELISA-National I...

BACKGROUND In Africa, fever is often treated presumptively as malaria, resulting in misdiagnosis and the overuse of antimalarial drugs. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria may allow improved fever management. METHODS We compared RDTs based on histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) and RDTs based on Plasmodium lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH) with expert microscopy and PCR-corrected microscopy for ...

In their short report on the utility of a point-of-care malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT) in HIV-infected adults, Mills and others conclude that “the rapid diagnostic test accurately ruled “in or out” malaria.” 1 However, at a positive predictive value of 70.6% and a lower confidence limit of 44.0%, it is difficult to state that the test accurately rules in malaria. At the “rule out” side, th...

Toxoplasma infection in pregnant women may cause congenital toxoplasmosis. Diagnosis of infection is based on serological tests aimed at detecting IgM and IgG antibodies against Toxoplasma gondii. However, IgM antibodies are not an accurate marker for discriminating between acute and latent infection. Detection of residual or persistent IgM may occur months or even years after primary infection...

This study compares the performance of clinical diagnosis and three laboratory diagnostic methods (thick film microscopy (TFM), rapid diagnostic test (RDT), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)) for the diagnosis of Plasmodium falciparum in Nigeria. Using clinical criteria, 217 children were recruited into the study out of which 106 (48.8%) were positive by TFM, 84 (38.7%) by RDT, and 125 (57.6%...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the validity of the Portuguese version of the Clinical Dementia Rating for classifying the cognitive function among the elderly. METHODS The Mini Mental State Examination was utilized as a screening method for cognitive deficit among a cohort of 424 elderly. All those who scored <26 points (108 elderly) and 48 elderly with scores > or =26 were included in the study. The ...

Sensitivity and specificity are the indices most commonly reported when describing the performance of a screening or diagnostic test. These indices, and their corresponding predictive values or likelihood ratios, are fundamental test properties since they allow the user to determine the consequences of selecting a particular cut oV criterion for referral or further investigative tests. (Sensiti...

Nasal potential difference (PD) measurement has been used as a diagnostic test for cystic fibrosis (CF). It has been shown that large differences in reproducibility of nasal PD measurement can exist between different study sites. These differences reduce the validity of studies. In our study we tried to measure nasal PD values for a group of Turkish CF patients by using a computer based data ac...

CONTEXT The standard doses of (13)C-urea in (13)C-urea breath test is 75 mg. OBJECTIVE To assess the diagnostic accuracy of (13)C-urea breath test containing 25 mg of (13)C-urea comparing with the standard doses of 75 mg in the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection. METHODS Two hundred seventy adult patients (96 males, 174 females, median age 41 years) performed the standard (13)C-urea...

This study compared the diagnostic accuracy of Quantitative Buffy Coat (QBC) a fluorescent microscopy test and OptiMAL, an immunochromatographic dip stick test against conventional microscopy for the detection of malaria at a tertiary teaching hospital situated in Eastern Nepal. 100 clinically suspected malaria patients with positive and negative parasitemia were assessed under conventional mic...