The prognostic and diagnostic value of Western Blot test in cystic echinococcosis

Abstract number: P1007

Yuksel P., Aslan M., Kocazeybek B., Saglam G.M., Polat E., Cakan H., Zengin K., Arikan S., Adas G., Saribas S., Uysal H., Oner Y.A., Caliskan R., Torun M.

Aim: Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a zoonosis and surgery is the treatment of choise and in certain cases supply complete cure. Surgery have problems like the inadequate cyst removal and relapses from ruptured and 'new' cysts not previously detected. The pre and post-surgical follow-up (PS) of hydatidosis performed by indirect haemagglutination (IHA), ELISA and Western Blot IgG (WB) tests. The antibodies can be detected for longer years and the usefullness of ELISA and IHA methods are limited for PS. We aimed to show the antigenic patterns of operated (OP) and non-operated patients with hydatid cysts (NOP) and also evaluate the importance of the antigenic differences for the PS of the patients. We also aimed to detect the specificity of Echinococcus granulosus WB kit.

Method: A total of 80 patients, 25 NOP, 33 OP and 22 healty controls (HC) with no known chronic disease were included. ELISA method was used. Cystic hydatid IgG antibodies were detected positive in serum samples of the all patients and no positivity for IgG antibodies were detected in serum samples of the HC. The antibodies against to the non specific p39, p24/26 kDa (genus specific but cross reactive with other species), p16/18 and p7 antigens specific for E. granulosus were investigated with WB (Euroimmun Labordiagnostica, Germany) kit. Serum samples with antibodies against to the p39 were considered negative and serum samples with antibodies against to the p7 were considered positive. Serum samples which have a weak bands for p16/18 ve p24/26 were considered negative, on the other hand the serum samples with strong bands for the same antigens were considered as suspicious and need to follow up.

Results: Antibodies against to the p7 antigen were detected in 24 (96%) of NOP and 18 (54.5%) of OP. No antibody was detected against to the p7, p16/18 and p24/26 antigens. It was detected a statistically higher significant difference between OP and NOP for p7 antigen (p < 0.01). The calculation of sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic Western Blot IgG kit were performed with serum samples of 25 NOP and 22 HC. The sensitivity and specificty of the WB test kit were calculated as 96% and 100%, respectively.

Conclusion: As a result of we suggest that antibodies against p7 antigens can be used for the diagnosis and PS of the patients with hydatid cysts because of the presence of antibodies against p7 antigens in serum samples of NOP and the decrease of antibodies against p7 antigens in the serum samples of OP.