Maidment C, Woods A, Chan R
Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, South Western Area Pathology Service, Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia.
Pathology. 1998 May;30(2):177-8. doi: 10.1080/00313029800169186.
The Enzygnost Syphilis (Behring Diagnostics, Marburg, Germany) was evaluated (i) using sera already characterised using the rapid plasma reagin test and the Treponema pallidum hemagglutination test (TPHA); (ii) prospectively; (iii) using sera which are recognised as causing "problems" with enzyme immunoassays. The Enzygnost Syphilis was found to have a reproducibility of 98.6% and a sensitivity of 99.5% using sera known to be TPHA-reactive. When tested prospectively, the false reactive rate was 3.2%. These results show that the assay performs sufficiently satisfactorily for its introduction as a screening assay for evidence of syphilis infection in our population.
