Varicella zoster virus antibody detection: A comparison of four commonly used techniques.
BACKGROUND
Antibody tests for the varicella zoster virus (VZV) include neutralization, fluorescent antibody to membrane antigen (FAMA), immune adherence hemagglutination (IAHA), enzyme immunoassay (EIA), glycoprotein-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (gpELISA), and complement fixation (CF) tests. Of these, FAMA is considered the most sensitive. However, in Japan, the EIA method is most frequently employed.


OBJECTIVE
The VZV antibody detection rate of the FAMA, EIA, gpELISA, and IAHA methods was compared.


METHODS
Four types of antibody tests were conducted with sera collected from 83 college students. The relationships between two antibody tests were examined using Pearson's correlation coefficients.


RESULTS
All 83 subjects were observed to be VZV antibody-positive using the FAMA method. The Pearson correlation coefficients of gpELISA, EIA, and IAHA relative to FAMA were 0.808, 0.782, and 0.356, respectively. The positive agreement rate of IAHA relative to FAMA was 88.0% (73/83), whereas those of gpELISA and EIA were both 97.6% (81/83). Furthermore, EIA showed 100% positive agreement with gpELISA and a high correlation coefficient of 0.911, whereas these values for IAHA compared to gpELISA were much lower (90.1% and 0.530). The calculated Pearson correlation coefficient for comparison of the EIA and IAHA methods was 0.498, with a positive agreement rate of 90.1% (73/81).


CONCLUSIONS
The EIA method should be employed in Japan based on the similarity of the positivity between EIA and gpELISA, as it is more available and practical than gpELISA.
['Otani|Naruhito|N|', 'Tanaka|Miyuki|M|', 'Maeda|Kazuhiro|K|', 'Gomi|Yasuyuki|Y|', 'Nakajima|Kazuhiko|K|', 'Tanimura|Susumu|S|', 'Takesue|Yoshio|Y|', 'Shima|Masayuki|M|', 'Okuno|Toshiomi|T|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000914:Antibodies, Viral D003168:Complement Fixation Tests D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay D005260:Female D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique D014645:Herpesvirus 3, Human D006801:Humans D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques D008297:Male D055815:Young Adult
Varicella zoster virus Antibody FAMA EIA Vaccine