Multicenter evaluation of an elisa for the detection of cryptosporidium spp. antigen in clinical human stool samples

Abstract

Human cryptosporidiosis remains underdiagnosed, and rapid/accurate diagnosis is of clinical importance. Diagnosis of the Cryptosporidium oocyst in stool samples by conventional microscopy is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and requires skillful experi-ence. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the usefulness of a coproantigen enzyme-linked im-munosorbent assay (ELISA) test in detecting Cryptosporidium spp. from fecal specimens. For this aim, we evaluated the performances of a commercial ELISA (CoproELISA Cryp-tosporidium kit, Savyon Diagnostics, Israel) for the detection of Cryptosporidium spp. in random clinical stool samples through a multicenter study. The sensitivity and specificity for coproantigen ELISA were 98.86% and 94.32%, respectively. The coproantigen ELISA results indicate that the simple, rapid, reliable, and standardized immunoassay test is sensitive and specific for routine diagnosis, and may be useful for large-scale epidemiological studies of cryptosporidiosis.