Immunological assays employed for the elucidation of an histoplasmosis outbreak in São Paulo, SP

Brazilian Journal of Microbiology

Angela Noronha Passos²  Valdelene Sayuri Kohara²  Roseli Santos De Freitas¹  Adriana Pardini Vicentini² 

[1] ,Instituto Adolfo Lutz Centro de Imunologia Laboratório de Imunodiagnóstico das MicosesSão Paulo SP ,Brazil

关键词: Histoplasma;    histoplasmosis;    immunoassay;    double immunodiffusion;    immunoblotting;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1517-83822014000400028

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

Several reports showed outbreaks of histoplasmosis acquired while bat-inhabited caves were visited by tourists, miners or researchers. We evaluated the performance of double immunodifusion (DI) and immunoblotting (IB) assays, employed for the histoplasmosis outbreak elucidation occurred in Vale do Paraíba, São Paulo. The existence of epidemiologic link, four patients with clinical signs suggestive of histoplasmosis and mycological confirmation has made that all 35 individuals involved to the cave visit were subjected to serological evaluation. By DI, we observed reactivity against H. capsulatum antigen in a single serum examined nearly 20 days after exposure to fungal propagules. On the other hand, IB showed reactivity against H and M fractions in 50% of samples evaluated. The analysis of the second sample batch, collected two months after the exposure showed that 96.7% were reactive by DI with antibodies titers ranging from 1 to 16 and 100% of reactivity against H and M fractions, by IB, suggesting an acute infection. The analysis of the overall agreement between the methods showed to be reasonable (κ = 0.37). This study confirms the importance and efficacy of more sensitive methodologies, such as IB assay, to early elucidation of disease, especially in cases of patients without mycological information.

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