COMPARISON OF THE DYE TEST AND HEMAGGLUTINATION TESTS BY THREE DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES IN THE SEROLOGIC DIAGNOSIS OF TOXOPLASMOSIS

The dye and three different hemagglutination tests for toxoplasmosis were compared and evaluated in regard to the sensitivity and specificity on a total of 228 sera from humans, dogs and cats.Good agreements were obtained among the positive rates by the dye test, a modified Jacobs-Lunde's and the Lewis-Kessel' s hemagglutination tests. Such a high agreement rate as 94% was shown on human sera by these hemagglutination tests, but slightly lower rates, 88.5% and 82.8%, on dog sera. The dye test demonstrated the antibody in all sera from proven cases of toxoplasmosis (29/29), whereas both Jacobs-Lunde's and Lewis-Kessel's hemagglutination tests in 97% (28/29) . Higher titers were demonstrated on the sera by these hemagglutination tests than by the dye test. By Jacobs-Lunde's hemagglutination test, the titer was 2 to 3 tubes (16 to 64 times) higher than that by the dye test. The titer by Lewis-Kessel's technique was 4 tubes (256 times) higher than that by the dye test. The Hanaki-Nobuto-Sato's hemagglutination test was slightly inferior to the other tests although the pre-sensitized and lyophilized erythrocytes are available for the test.