SynthesisJournal of clinical microbiology2015
Comparison of Diagnostic Accuracy of PCR Targeting the 47-Kilodalton Protein Membrane Gene of Treponema pallidum and PCR Targeting the DNA Polymerase I Gene: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Journal of clinical microbiology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Innovations and Challenges in Syphilis Screening and Prevention Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: A Scoping Review.Sexually transmitted diseases · 2026Article
- Detection ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Cytokines in cerebrospinal fluid combined with machine learning improve the diagnostic accuracy and predict the progression of neurosyphilis.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- The Proportion ofOpen forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Prevalence and Predictors of Oral Treponema pallidum Detection by Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction in Early Syphilis.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Article
- An Update on the Status of Direct Testing forJournal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada = Journal officiel de l'Association pour la microbiologie medicale et l'infectiologie Canada · 2024Review
- Resurgence of syphilis: focusing on emerging clinical strategies and preclinical models.Journal of translational medicine · 2023Review
- Development and clinical validation of a one-step pentaplex real-time reverse transcription PCR assay for detection of hepatitis virus B, C, E, Treponema pallidum, and a human housekeeping gene.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction/Pooled Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing Was Not Associated with Increased Antibiotic Resistance in Management of Complicated Urinary Tract Infections.Infection and drug resistance · 2023Article
- A suite of PCR-LwCas13a assays for detection and genotyping of Treponema pallidum in clinical samples.Nature communications · 2022Article
- A New Gold Rush: A Review of Current and Developing Diagnostic Tools for Urinary Tract Infections.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Laboratory Diagnostic Tools for Syphilis: Current Status and Future Prospects.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2020Review
- PCR detection for syphilis diagnosis: Status and prospects.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2019Review
- Sensitive detection of Treponema pallidum DNA from the whole blood of patients with syphilis by the nested PCR assay.Emerging microbes & infections · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Treponema pallidum PCR (Tp-PCR) testing now is recommended as a valid tool for the diagnosis of primary or secondary syphilis. The objectives were to systematically review and determine the optimal specific target gene to be used for Tp-PCR. Comparisons of the performance of the two main targets are tpp47 and polA genes were done using meta-analysis. Three electronic bibliographic databases, representing abstract books from five conferences specialized in infectious diseases from January 1990 to March 2015, were searched. Search keywords included ("syphilis" OR "Treponema pallidum" OR "neurosyphilis") AND ("PCR" OR "PCR" OR "molecular amplification"). We included diagnostic studies assessing the performance of Tp-PCR targeting tpp47 (tpp47-Tp-PCR) or the polA gene (polA-Tp-PCR) in ulcers from early syphilis. All studies were assessed against quality criteria using the QUADAS-2 tool. Of 37 studies identified, 62.2% were judged at low risk of bias or applicability. Most used the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) case definitions for primary or secondary (early) syphilis (89.2%; n = 33); 15 (40.5%) used darkfield microscopy (DFM). We did not find differences in sensitivity and specificity between the two Tp-PCR methods in the subgroup of studies using adequate reference tests. Among studies using DFM as the reference test, sensitivities were 79.8% (95% confidence intervals [CI], 72.7 to 85.4%) and 71.4% (46.0 to 88.0%) for tpp47-Tp-PCR and polA-Tp-PCR (P = 0.217), respectively; respective specificities were 95.3% (93.5 to 96.6%) and 93.7% (91.8 to 95.2%) (P = 0.304). Our findings suggest that the two Tp-PCR methods have similar accuracy and could be used interchangeably.
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