A comparative study of effectiveness of diagnostic tests (rK39 strip, if at and bone marrow stained smear)‎for : visceral leishmaniasis

Abstract EN

Background : Iraq is an endemic area for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) (kala-azar), which is caused by the intracellular parasite Leis mania Donovan.

A high sensitive and specific laboratory diagnostic approach is needed because of the high fatal evolution of the disease without treatment and the serious toxicity of most widely used first-line drug, sodium stibogluconate.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of recombinant kinetin 39 mimmunochromatographic (rK39 IC) strip test, indirect immunofuorescent antibody test (IFAT) and bone marrow stained smear in diagnosis of acute VL cases.

Patients and Methods : A total of 394 clinically suspected cases of kala-azar (218 males and 176 females, whose ages ranged from 1 month to 15 years), with 36 healthy children and 41 children infected with bacterial or parasitic infection other than VL were investigated for kala-azar by two serological tests (rK39 strip test and IFAT) with microscopic examination of stained bone marrow smear.

Results : One hundred and thirty-five out of 394 clinically suspected cases were diagnosed as kala-azar patients.

The sensitivity and specificity were 88.7 % and 100 % respectively for rK39 strip test and 95.2% and 87.8 % respectively for IFAT, while the sensitivity of bone marrow smear was 79.2 %.

Conclusion : recombinant kinetin 39 IC strip test have good sensitivity and specificity in predicting acute VL cases.