ArticleBiomedica : revista del Instituto Nacional de Salud2021
Disagreement between PCR and serological diagnosis of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in blood donors from a Colombian endemic region.
Article in Biomedica : revista del Instituto Nacional de Salud, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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3 citing papers in PubMed, 2 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stage-InformedMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Diagnosis of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in Mexican populations: current conventional serology lacks adequate sensitivity and specificity.Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz · 2025Article
- Article
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6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
introductionChagas' disease is the leading cause of infectious myocarditis worldwide. This infection caused by Trypanosoma cruzi is usually life-long and asymptomatic; however, the third part of infected people can develop severe or even fatal cardiomyopathy. As the parasitemia in the chronic phase is both low-grade and intermittent, T. cruzi infection is principally detected by serology, although this method has sensitivity and specificity limitations.
objectiveTo determine the level of agreement between serologic and molecular tests in 658 voluntary blood donors from six provinces in the Colombian department of Santander. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe evaluated an array of diagnostic technologies by cross-section sampling performing a serological double diagnostic test for T. cruzi antibody detection (Chagas III ELISA™, BiosChile Group, and ARCHITECT Chagas CMIA™, Abbott), and DNA detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We collected the demographic, clinical, and epidemiological information of participants. The sample size was calculated using Epidat™ and the statistical analysis was done with Stata 12.1™.
resultsPCR was six times more sensitive in detecting T. cruzi infection than ELISA/CMIA with prevalence values of 1.8% (12/658) and 0.3% (2/658), respectively, and kappa=0.28 (95%CI: -0.03 - 0.59). In contrast, serology showed a sensitivity of 16.7% (95%CI: 2.09 - 48.4) and a specificity of 100% (95%CI: 99.4 - 100). All seropositive samples were found to be positive by PCR.
conclusionsThe implementation of PCR as a complementary method for screening donors could reduce the probability of false negative and the consequent risk of transfusional-transmission of Chagas' disease, especially in endemic regions.
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