On Thu, 9 Nov 1995, James F. Munro wrote:
> > Do any of you have experience in faecal immunodiagnosis of human
> > giardiasis?
I have used the Prospect Giardia (Alexon) (Rapid Assay
& the Tube Assay), Color Vue, and Color Vue II (Seradyn) and the
MeriFluor Giardia/Crypto (Meridian Diagnostics).
> >I'd be interested to know what techniques you favour, such
> > as ELISA or immunofluorescence.
All of the above mentioned work well enough. The Elisa formats
are supposed to be sensitive enough to detect infections when cyst
density is below the threshold necessary for microscopic detection by a
concentration technique (ZnSO4 in our lab). This is true most of the time
but we have been able to make all of the ELISAs fail when following a
known positive animal that was previously diagnosed using a concentration
technique. The IFA techniques are specific for Giardia, but have the
same limited sensitivity as a single flotation exam.
> > Also, are any commercially available
> > imunodiagnostic kits to be particularly recommended?
All of the tests are expensive to run! I'd still put my money on
3 fecals collected on successive days. This has been shown to catch
aproximately 90% of all known positives.
Hope this has been helpful.
**********************************
* Charles T. Faulkner * Get your facts first and then you
* Univ of Tennessee, Knoxville * can distort them as much as you please.
* (ctfaulkner at utk.edu) * Mark Twain
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