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. 1995 Jul;33(7):1742–1745. doi: 10.1128/jcm.33.7.1742-1745.1995

Leish-KIT, a stable direct agglutination test based on freeze-dried antigen for serodiagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis.

S E Meredith 1, N C Kroon 1, E Sondorp 1, J Seaman 1, M G Goris 1, C W van Ingen 1, H Oosting 1, G J Schoone 1, W J Terpstra 1, L Oskam 1
PMCID: PMC228261  PMID: 7665640

Abstract

In order to increase the application potential of the direct agglutination test (DAT) for the detection of anti-Leishmania antibodies in human serum samples, we developed an antigen based on stained and freeze-dried Leishmania donovani promastigotes. We describe here the evaluation of the performance of the DAT based on this freeze-dried antigen. It was shown that the freeze-dried antigen remains fully active, even after storage at 56 degrees C for 18 months. With a cutoff value of 1:1,600, the sensitivity of the DAT was shown to be 92% and the specificity of the test was 99.7%, which were comparable with the results found for the DAT based on liquid antigen. The major advantages of the freeze-dried antigen are that the production of a large batch of this antigen allows reproducible results in the DAT over a long period of time and that the freeze-dried antigen can be stored at ambient temperature, which, as was shown, makes the test a valuable diagnostic tool for use in the field.

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Selected References

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