ArticleBMC infectious diseases2013
The development and validation of dried blood spots for external quality assurance of syphilis serology.
Article in BMC infectious diseases, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reliability of dried blood spot (DBS) cards in antibody measurement: A systematic review.PloS one · 2021Pooled it
- Assessment of the suitability of the dried blood spot (DBS) samples for detection of Treponemal antibodies using in vitro assays.The Indian journal of medical research · 2025Article
- Development and evaluation of serological screening based on one dried plasma spot for HIV, syphilis, and HCV.Virology journal · 2023Article
- Protocol: evaluation of an optimised couples-focused intervention to increase testing for HIV in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, the Igugu Lethu ('Our treasure') cohort study.BMC public health · 2022Article
- At-Home Specimen Self-Collection and Self-Testing for Sexually Transmitted Infection Screening Demand Accelerated by the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Review of Laboratory Implementation Issues.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2021Review
- Absence of Serological Evidence of Exposure toThe American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2019Article
- Syphilis.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2017Review
- The introduction of syphilis point of care tests in resource limited settings.Expert review of molecular diagnostics · 2017Review
- Article
- Defining Seropositivity Thresholds for Use in Trachoma Elimination Studies.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2017Article
- Community seroprevalence survey for yaws and trachoma in the Western Division of Fiji.Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene · 2016Article
- Prevalence of Active and Latent Yaws in the Solomon Islands 18 Months after Azithromycin Mass Drug Administration for Trachoma.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2016Article
- Validation of serological tests for the detection of antibodies against Treponema pallidum in nonhuman primates.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2015Article
- The implementation of an external quality assurance method for point- of- care tests for HIV and syphilis in Tanzania.BMC infectious diseases · 2013Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSyphilis causes up to 1,500,000 congenital syphilis cases annually. These could be prevented if all pregnant women were screened, and those with syphilis treated with a single dose of penicillin before 28 weeks gestation. In recent years, rapid point-of-care tests have allowed greater access to syphilis screening, especially in rural or remote areas, but the lack of quality assurance of rapid testing has been a concern. We determined the feasibility of using dried blood spots (DBS) as specimens for quality assurance of syphilis serological assays.
methodsWe developed DBS extraction protocols for use with Treponema pallidum particle agglutination assay (TPPA), Treponema pallidum haemagglutination assay (TPHA) and an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and compared the results with those using matching plasma samples from the same patient.
resultsSince DBS samples showed poor performance with TPHA and EIA (TPHA sensitivity was 50.5% (95% confidence interval: 39.9-61.2%) and EIA specificity was 50.4% (95% CI: 43.7-57.1%), only the DBS TPPA was used in the final evaluation. DBS TPPA showed an sensitivity of 95.5% (95% CI: 91.3-98.0%) and a specificity of 99.0% (95% CI: 98.1-99.5%) compared to TPPA using plasma samples as a reference.
conclusionDBS samples can be recommended for use with TPPA, and may be of value for external quality assurance of point-of-care syphilis testing.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.