Whereas Toxoplasma gondii infection in the immunocompetent
adult usually causes no serious clinical symptoms,
congenital infection can lead to abortion or severe disease in the
newborn infant. Early diagnosis should be made as soon as
possible particularly in pregnant women and newborn babies
since early treatment can minimize fetal sequelae. This work
evaluates IgM-ELISA and PCR in diagnosis of recent T. gondii
infection. The results revealed that PCR detected very recently
infected cases (23 out of 70 suspected cases) than IgM-ELISA
(only18 cases). The combination of both tests may help to
improve the sensitivity of diagnosis (45% in suspected group)
more than either PCR (32.8%) or IgM-ELISA alone (25.7%). |
