Comparison of Two ELISA Methods for the Laboratory Diagnosis of Acute Leptospirosis

Background: leptospirosis is the most common zoonosiswidespread in tropical and temperate countries with low social-economic status. we aimed to compare an elisa kit withan in-house elisa assay to test the serum samples of the patientswho were suspicious of leptospirosis according to theirclinical symptoms.methods: a total of 282 serum samples of patients suspiciousof leptospirosis admitted to hospitals in rasht city (north ofiran) were examined for sero-diagnosis of leptospirosis. bloodsamples were obtained with mean time of 6.36 days after theonset of the symptoms. antibodies were detected using a commercialqualitative and by an in-house semi quantitative igmand igg elisa and the results were compared with microscopicagglutination test (mat) as the gold standard. allspecimens with titers .320 against a pathogenic serovar inmat were considered positive for leptospirosis.results: the results of mat have demonstrated that 70 serumsamples (24.8%) had a positive reaction with one of the leptospiraserovar. the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negativepredictive values were 87.1% , 91.0 %, 67.8%, and 95.5% for inhouseelisa assay, respectively, and 100%, 42.9%, 36.6%, and100 % for commercial igm elisa assay, respectively.conclusion: our results showed that igm elisa assay is areliable and sensitive method for the laboratory diagnosis ofacute leptospirosis. in-house semi quantitative igm elisawas more specific and commercial igm elisa was moresensitive.