British Journal of General Practice, October 2013 553 BACkground And AdvAntAges over exIstIng teChnology Early diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is important in preventing long-term damage and disability. RA should be suspected largely on the basis of clinical findings, such as persistent joint pain, swelling, and stiffness. Further investigations, particularly in primary car...

In Venezuela, two non-tsetse transmitted trypanosomes, Trypanosoma evansi and Trypanosoma vivax, are the major etiological agents of animal trypanosomosis. Rodents can be experimentally infected with T. evansi in order to obtain enough parasites to prepare antigens for serological tests. On the contrary, the production of T. vivax antigens is a limiting factor in most laboratories. Since T. eva...

Culture is the only reliable method available at present for the diagnosis of melioidosis. Though serological tests have been described, their value in routine diagnosis is controversial. All indirect immunofluorescent assay (IFA) was therefore evaluated to determine its use in the diagnosis of melioidosis. Whole cell antigen prepared from a laboratory isolate of Burkholderia pseudomallei was u...

We evaluated four recent antibody-detection kits for typhoid fever by using 177 febrile patients from our hospital, in 75 of whom Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi grew. TUBEX performed best, achieving 94.7% sensitivity and 80.4% specificity. Typhidot, SD Bioline Typhoid, and Mega Salmonella were less specific and, in most cases, less sensitive.

During 1998‒2012, coccidioidomycosis cases increased nationally nearly eightfold. To describe the epidemiology of coccidioidomycosis in Missouri, a state without endemic coccidioidomycosis, coccidioidomycosis surveillance data during 2004-2013 at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services were retrospectively reviewed. The incidence of reported coccidioidomycosis increased from 0.05 ...

The present paper describes a case of bilateral panuveitis due to Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato diagnosed by a PCR approach using cerebral spinal fluid. Since the culture of B. burgdorferi takes a long time to grow and the accuracy of serological tests is doubtful in patients, the PCR method of amplifying a B. burgdorferi flagellin could be suitable to make a positive diagnosis in a case of a...

Three-hundred sixty sera from unselected patients attending two London venereal disease clinics were examined by a microimmunofluorescence test. Eleven egg-grown serotypes of Chlamydia trachomatis and the so-called "fast" strain SA2(f) were used as antigens. Of the 360 sera tested, 119 (33%) reacted to a titer of 1:16 or above with at least one antigen. Of these positive sera, over 50% cross-re...

Leishmaniasis is a clinically heterogeneous syndrome caused by intracellular protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania. The clinical spectrum of leishmaniasis encompasses subclinical (not apparent), localized (skin lesion), and disseminated (cutaneous, mucocutaneous, and visceral) infection. This spectrum of manifestations depends on the immune status of the host, on the parasite, and on immu...

Recently, Carr, Becker, and Carpenter (1966) published evidence indicating that biological false positive reactions to reagin tests, as judged primarily by negative results to the treponemal immobilization test, occurred more frequently in elderly patients than in the population as a whole. Although some aspects of this work have been justifiably criticized by Wuepper and Tuffanelli (1966), the...