COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SYPHILIS SCREENING TECHNIQUES IN A POPULATION OF PREGNANT WOMEN

Salma Hasnane*, Anass Jarmoumi, Mustapha Deqaq, Chaimaa Benlabsir, Jalila El Bakkouri and Hassan Fellah

ABSTRACT

Syphilis is a Sexually Transmitted Infection, due to T. pallidum, it has increased considerably since the 2000s. Consequently, it represents a major activity for biological analysis laboratories. VDRL-charcoal and TPHA are the two main screening and serodiagnosis tests for syphilis. In the present work, we carried out a cross-sectional, monocentric study focusing on the search for anti-treponemal antibodies in serum samples from pregnant women consulting at the peripheral hospital in Casablanca, using four distinct syphilitic serology kits, in order to evaluate two kits from the firm PLASMATEC® (VDRL-charcoal and TPHA), compared to the kits used routinely and therefore that we considered as a reference by the laboratory of this peripheral hospital, this concerns the kits from the company BioSystems® for the VDRL-charcoal test and from the company OMEGA® for the TPHA test, with a the possibility of introducing them into routine analysis. The sample consisting of 100 sera from pregnant women was tested by the VDRL-charcoal and TPHA tests technique using the BioSystems® reference kit (RPR-charcoal) and the reference kit OMEGA® (TPHA), and the tested PLASMATEC® kit (VDRL-charcoal, TPHA). Both kits gave negative results for all samples analyzed, with 100% correlation, 0% sensitivity, 100% specificity, and 0% and 100% PPV and NPV, respectively. Despite the 100% correlation of the results of the kits tested against the reference kits. Their possible introduction to routine use remains subject to carrying out studies with samples that are more representative in number and quality (positive sera, sera from patients with confirmed clinical signs of syphilis).

Keywords: VDRL-charcoal and TPHA.