evaluate Medmira and Chembio syphilis tests mar 2022Methods: One hundred serum samples with known syphilis serological status, based on treponemal and non-treponemal test results, were analysed in the laboratory with two POCTs by two independent operators in a blind fashion. Results were analysed to evaluate their ability to detect infectious syphilis. Results: The Reveal Rapid TP Antibody POCT showed an overall sensitivity of 95.0% and a specificity of 83.3%, while the DPP Syphilis Screen and Confirm POCT showed a sensitivity of 87.5% and a specificity of 98.3%. Both POCTs gave a sensitivity of 100% on active syphilis samples with Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) titres of greater than 1:4, but their sensitivities decreased for samples with low VDRL titres. Both POCTs gave weakly or very weakly reactive results on 11.3%–25.0% of the treponemal antibody positive samples. Conclusion: This laboratory evaluation has shown promising results for both POCTs to detect infectious syphilis. Further evaluations in the field would be required to confirm this preliminary finding. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Affiliations 1 Syphilis Diagnostic Unit, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, MB 2 Cadham Provincial Public Health Laboratory, Winnipeg, MB 3 Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB *Correspondence: raymond.tsang@phac-aspc.gc.ca Suggested citation: Tsang RSW, Shuel M, Hayden K, Van Caeseele P, Stein DR. Laboratory evaluation of two pointof-care test kits for the identification of infectious syphilis. Can Commun Dis Rep 2022;48(2/3):83–8. https://doi.org/10.14745/ccdr.v48i23a05 Keywords: infectious syphilis, point-of-care tests
https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/services/reports-publications/canada-communicable-disease-report-ccdr/monthly-issue/2022-48/issue-2-3-february-march-2022/ccdrv48i23a05-eng.pdf