COMPARISON OF ECL AND ELISA EUROIMMUN FOR DETECTION OF CYTOMEGALOVIRUS IGM ANTIBODIES

Cytomegalovirus is a herpes virus transmitted by close human contact. No symptoms of infection are apparent in majority of cases. However, congenital Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is the most common intrauterine viral infection. The majority of fetus infection cases are asymptomatic, but a few may develop late sequelae, such as sensorineuronal hearing loss or chorioretinitis. The purpose of the present study was to compare ECl and ELISA EUROIMMUN immunoassays for detection of anti-Cytomegalovirus IgM antibodies in pregnant women and to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of each technique. 200 pregnant women were involved in this study and serum samples were analyzed with both techniques including 150 negative and 50 positive samples for anti-cytomegalovirus IgM antibodies. The ECL immunoassay resulted with higher sensitivity and lower specificity of 98% and 98,7%, respectively, while ELISA immunoassay resulted with lower sensitivity and higher specificity of 93,9% and 99,3%, respectively. The evaluation of the results (ANOVA;. F-0,F-05[1,F-398] = 0.432, p = 0.512) showed a very good concordance between the two immunoassays (r = 0,873) for early diagnosis of cytomegalovirus infections in pregnant women.