To decrease the likelihood of disease progression to the devastating and often fatal Strongyloides hyperinfection syndrome, the identification and treatment of chronic intestinal strongyloidiasis are important, especially in immunocompromised individuals [3]. Furthermore, untreated

infected individuals may risk the occurrence of long-term persistent Strongyloides infections due to the ability of the parasite to replicate within the host by autoinfection. The absence of a gold standard test for the diagnosis of strongyloidiasis has worsened the situation; therefore, numerous techniques have been developed to improve the sensitivities and specificities of the available detection methods. These methods are either traditional selleck chemicals parasitological methods (i.e. faecal direct smear, formalin–ethyl Birinapant cell line acetate concentration, agar plate culture, Baermann concentration, Harada-Mori filter paper culture, and Kato-Katz thick smear) or serological methods [e.g. enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect immunofluorescent test (IFAT)], which are useful complements to parasitological

diagnoses of strongyloidiasis [4-6]. The immunodiagnosis of active or recent S. stercoralis infections by ELISA has been reported to have approximately 85–95% sensitivity [7]. However, these assays show variable sensitivity and specificity, depending on antigen preparation, immunoglobulin isotypes and the tested populations [8]. Current guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Society of Transplantation, the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention and the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation recommend Strongyloides IgG-ELISA testing of patients from endemic areas or of patients with gastrointestinal symptoms or eosinophilia prior to solid organ transplantation or hematopoietic stem cell (including autologous) transplantation [3, 9, 10]. However, IgG4 antibodies have been generally considered to be far more specific Bay 11-7085 for the detection of intestinal helminth infections compared to IgG antibodies, which commonly cross-react with filarial antigens [11-13]. In this regard, Muck and colleagues [13] recommend that diagnostic laboratories that use assays based on crude filarial lysates should rule out Strongyloides infections when positive antifilarial antibody responses are obtained. In an effort to improve the serodiagnosis of human strongyloidiasis, this study was performed to evaluate the sensitivities and specificities of IgG-, IgG4- and IgE-ELISAs using laboratory-based ELISAs and a commercial IgG-ELISA (IVD Research, Inc., Carlsbad, CA, USA). A total of 26 serum samples were obtained from patients with parasitologically proven Strongyloides infection, and 55 sera were obtained from patients with other infections or with no infections (healthy controls) (Table 1).