Interassay Correlation of Human Herpesvirus 8 Serologic Tests

• Published in: The Journal of infectious diseases Vol. 178; no. 2; pp. 304 - 309
• Main Authors: Rabkin, Charles S., Schulz, Thomas F., Whitby, Denise, Lennette, Evelyne T., Magpantay, Larry I., Chatlynne, Louise, Biggar, Robert J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago, IL The University of Chicago Press 01.08.1998; University of Chicago Press; Oxford University Press
• Subjects: Antibodies; Antigens; Biological and medical sciences; Blood donation; Capsid proteins; Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Herpesviridae; Human herpesvirus 8; Human viral diseases; Infectious diseases; Kaposi sarcoma; Major Articles; Medical sciences; Microbiology; Open reading frames; Techniques used in virology; Viral diseases; Viral diseases with cutaneous or mucosal lesions and viral diseases of the eye; Virology; Viruses; Greece; United States; North America; Europe; America; Performance evaluation; Human; Skin disease; Antibody; Herpesviridae; Serology; Malignant tumor; Method; Infection; Virus; Kaposi sarcoma; Viral disease; Diagnosis; ELISA assay; Comparative study
• ISSN: 0022-1899; 1537-6613
• DOI: 10.1086/515649

To standardize human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) antibody assays for application to asymptomatic infection, a blinded comparison was done of seven immunofluorescence assays and ELISAs. Five experienced laboratories tested a serum panel from 143 subjects in 4 diagnostic groups. Except for a minor capsid protein ELISA, the other six tests detected HHV-8 antibodies most frequently in classic (80%–100%) and AIDS-related (67%–91%) Kaposi's sarcoma, followed by human immunodeficiency virus-seropositive patients (27%–60%), and least frequently in healthy blood donors (0–29%). However, these six assays frequently disagreed on individual sera, particularly for blood donor samples. Current HHV-8 antibody tests have uncertain accuracy in asymptomatic HHV-8 infection and may require correlation with viral protein or nucleic acid detection. Antibody assays are useful for epidemiologic investigations, but the absolute prevalence of HHV-8 infection in the United States cannot yet be determined.