Comparative evaluation of AxSYM, VIDAS and VIDIA toxoplasmosis reagent performance in a high seroprevalence Latin American country

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of three automated immunoassays for the detection of IgM and IgG Toxoplasma gondii antibodies using sera of pregnant women living in Colombia, a Latin American country with a high seroprevalence. METHODS: A total of 905 sera were tested for IgM antibodies and 914 for IgG antibodies with AxSYM, VIDAS and VIDIA immunoassays. Discrepancies were resolved by using the dye test for IgG antibodies, and the ISAGA test for IgM. RESULTS: The overall agreement between AxSYM, VIDAS and VIDIA assays was excellent for detection of IgG and IgM antibodies, and discrepancies were relatively rare (3.6% and 5.5% of sera for IgG and IgM antibodies, respectively). The performance of the three immunoassays was similar for the detection of IgG antibodies with high sensitivity (100.00% for VIDIA, 99.59% for VIDAS, 99.38% for AxSYM) and specificity (99.04% for VIDIA, 98.82% for AxSYM, 98.57% for VIDAS). The specificity for IgM antibodies was excellent for the three immunassays (99.88% for VIDIA, 99.76% for AxSYM and VIDAS). The sensitivity of the detection of IgM antibodies was higher with VIDIA (95.12%) than with VIDAS (76.74%) and AxSYM (61.90%) assays. The correlation between IgG titers was limited between AxSYM and VIDAS assays and between AxSYM and VIDIA assays, but was excellent between VIDIA and VIDAS assays. CONCLUSIONS: Our study performed with Latin American sera confirmed the excellent specificity of AxSYM, VIDAS and VIDIA assays for the detection of IgG and IgM antibodies already reported in other countries. The sensitivity of the detection of IgG antibodies was slightly higher with VIDIA than with VIDAS and AxSYM assays. The sensitivity of the detection of IgM antibodies was higher with VIDIA than with VIDAS and AxSYM assays.