ArticlePloS one2020
A retrospective study on nested PCR detection of syphilis treponemes in clinical samples: PCR detection contributes to the diagnosis of syphilis in patients with seronegative and serodiscrepant results.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Potential for Combined Treponemal/Nontreponemal Rapid Point-of-Care Test and Treponema pallidum Polymerase Chain Reaction in the Diagnosis of Gestational and Congenital Syphilis in a Low-Resource, High-Prevalence Setting: Pilot Data From Malawi.Sexually transmitted diseases · 2026Article
- The Proportion ofOpen forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Epidemic of multiple Treponema pallidum strains in men who have sex with men in Japan: efficient multi-locus sequence typing scheme and indicator biomarkers.AIDS research and therapy · 2024Article
- Laboratory Evaluation of the Chembio DPP Syphilis Screen & Confirm Point-of-Care Test on Serum and Simulated Blood Samples.Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada = Journal officiel de l'Association pour la microbiologie medicale et l'infectiologie Canada · 2024Article
- 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
- Detection of Treponema pallidum in whole blood samples of patients with syphilis by the polymerase chain reaction.Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de Sao Paulo · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Syphilis, caused by Treponema pallidum ssp. pallidum (TPA), is a persisting global health problem. Although syphilis diagnostics relies mainly on serology, serological tests have some limitations, and it is recommended that the final diagnosis be supported by additional tests. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between serology and PCR in syphilis diagnostics. From the year 2004 to May 2019, a total of 941 samples were taken from 833 patients suspected of having syphilis, in Czech Republic. In all these samples, both nested PCR detection of TPA and serology testing were performed. Of the 941 samples, 126 were seronegative, 651 were seropositive, and 164 were serodiscrepant. Among seronegative samples (n = 126), 11 were PCR-positive (8.7%). Among seropositive samples (n = 651; i.e., samples positive for both non-treponemal and treponemal serology tests), 368 samples were PCR-positive (56.5%). The remaining 164 serodiscrepant samples included RPR negative and treponemal serological test-positive samples (n = 154) and a set of 10 RPR-positive samples negative in treponemal serological tests. While the first group revealed 73 PCR-positive samples (47.4%), the second revealed 5 PCR positive samples (50.0%). PCR detection rates were highest in primary syphilis, with lower rates in the secondary and undetermined syphilis stages. As shown here, the nested PCR can improve diagnostics of syphilis, especially in seronegative patients and in patients with discrepant serology.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.