TABLE 4.
Clinical diagnosis of primary syphilis made by using syphilis serology and patient history as a model for a general practitioner setting versus the result of the T. pallidum real-time PCRa
| T. pallidum real-time PCR result | No. of samples with the following result for clinical diagnosis in GP settingb: |
|
|---|---|---|
| + | − | |
| + | 76 | 17 |
| − | 26 | 597 |
a
The data are for a total of 716 cases. The sensitivity of the T. pallidum real-time PCR was 75%, and its specificity was 97%. The kappa value was 0.745, which indicates good agreement between the results of the two tests.
b
Primary syphilis was diagnosed either in patients with a positive TPPA result (irrespective of the RPR test result) without a history of syphilis or in patients with an RPR titer of ≥1:8 and a history of syphilis (Fig. 2).