Saliva as a source of feline leukemia virus antigen for diagnosis of disease

Abstract

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detection of feline leukemia virus (FeLV) p27 in saliva was tested for its accuracy and sensitivity in diagnosing FeLV infections. Saliva and serum samples from 564 clinical cases were tested with a 99.2% specificity. The overall accuracy of the saliva ELISA reactive to the serum ELISA was 97.9%. Experimentally, the ELISA saliva was the least sensitive in diagnosing early FeLV infections. However, the overall accuracy, ease of use, and simplicity of the test support its use as a screening procedure in clinical practice.