[Comparison of ELIFA and IGM-immunocapture technics in the diagnosis of 50 cases of congenital toxoplasmosis].

The authors have compared the diagnostic value in congenital toxoplasmosis of two recently developed immunological techniques, Enzyme Linked immunofiltration Assay (ELIFA) and IgM-immunocapture (or immunosorbent agglutination assay). The study involved 50 children suffering from congenital toxoplasmosis and 300 unscathed control children, whose mothers suffered from toxoplasmosis during their pregnancies. The ELIFA technique showed a sensitivity of 74 p. cent at the end of the first month after birth (day 30) and 84 p. cent after two months (day 60), whereas the IgM-immunocapture technique gave a sensitivity of 64 p. cent at day 30 and 70 p. cent at day 60. Both methods were at least 95 p. cent specific. The two techniques seem to be complementary to each other, and their association allowed the diagnosis to be confirmed in 80 p. cent of cases at day 30 and in 90 p. cent of cases at day 60. A serum sample taken on the tenth day after birth (day 10) was important both to eliminate the rare cases (5 p. cent) of transplacental transmission of maternal IgM antibodies and to detect transient neonatal synthesis of IgG or IgM toxoplasmic antibodies.