In human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), two disease stages are defined: the first, or haemo-lymphatic stage, and the second, or meningo-encephalitic stage. Stage determination forms the basis of therapeutic decision and is of prime importance, as the drug used to cure second-stage patients has considerable side-effects. However, the tests currently used for stage determination have low sensitiv...

BACKGROUND New monoclonal antibody-based assays for serum-free light chains (FLC) have become available. METHODS In a clinical study with 541 patients, the new N Latex FLC assays were compared with the Freelite FLC assays and immunofixation electrophoresis (IF). RESULTS Comparison of the different FLC kappa (κ) assays showed a slope of 0.99 with a deviation of 5.0%, rs=0.92, for FLC lambda ...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Conventional methods to detect methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus are inadequate as expression of resistance is subject to environmental and conditional expression of PBP2a antigen. The objective of the present study was to determine methicillin resistance in S. aureus by conventional susceptibility (oxacillin disc diffusion and oxacillin MIC) and molecular m...

Sputum specimens from 480 patients were examined for the presence of pneumococci by Gram film and culture and for pneumococcal antigen by counterimmunoelectrophoresis, coagglutination, and latex agglutination. Ninety six positive specimens were detected. Gram film and culture provided the most reliable techniques in well taken specimens collected early in the illness before antibiotic treatment...

In their paper entitled "Comparison of the PREMIER Cryptococcal Antigen Enzyme Immunoassay and the Latex Agglutination Assay for Detection of Cryptococcal Antigens" (1), Gade et al. compare a new enzyme immunoassay (EIA) for the detection and quantification of circulating capsular polysaccharide antigen from Cryptococcus neoformans with the latex agglutination (LA) test performed with a commerc...

A latex agglutination test was compared with the micro-titration haemolysin inhibition method for the detection of anti-streptolysin O (ASO) antibodies in 428 serum samples. After slight modification of the latex method to produce maximal agglutination good agreement was shown between the results obtained by the two methods. The latex test had a sensitivity of 83.6%, a specificity of 93.3%, a p...

SYNOPSIS Fibrinogen antigens were measured either with an agglutination inhibition method (using latex particles coated with fibrinogen; Diagen test) or with a direct agglutination technique (using latex particles coated with a mixture of anti-D and anti-E antibodies; Thrombo-Wellcotest). Both methods were compared with the tanned red cell haemagglutination inhibition immunoassay (TRCHII) durin...

Introduction The heterogeneous expression of methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) affects the efficiency of tests available to detect it. The objective of this study was to assess four phenotypic tests used to detect MRSA. Methods This is an analytical comparative study conducted among sudanese patients during period from May 2012 to July 2014, Staphylococcus aureus strains ...