Comparison of Three Diagnostic Methods for the Detection of Cytomegalovirus and Toxoplasma gondii IgG Antibodies at Prenatal Screening

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections are typically asymptomatic infections, but they can have serious consequences mainly in newborns and immunocompromised patients. In many parts of the world, these infections are routinely screened during pregnancy (toxoplasmosis) and, in others, high-risk individuals are tested using fully automated screening assays. In this study, we investigated the performance of the three fully automated immunoassays, LIAISON® XL DiaSorin, Abbott Architect and Roche Cobas®, for the determination of specific IgG antibodies to Cytomegalovirus and Toxoplasma gondii in human serum or plasma samples in terms of prevalence of CMV and Toxo IgG detected, and both sensitivity and specificity. Performance of the LIAISON® assays was investigated compared to two other assays, ARCHITECT (CMV IgG and Toxo IgG assays) and Cobas® (CMV IgG and Toxo IgG assays). Discrepant anti CMV IgG and anti Toxoplasma IgG samples were tested for IgM to CMV and Toxoplasma to exclude early acute infection where IgG could be detected differently by the methods. Overall, for both CMV IgG and Toxo IgG, the LIAISON® assay was better than both the Cobas® and ARCHITECT assays in terms of CMV and Toxo IgG detected, and both diagnostic sensitivity and specificity performance although the difference is statistically significant only compared to Cobas®.