Evaluation on diagnostic efficiency of the standard tube agglutination test for bovine brucellosis

A confirmatory serological test, the standard tube agglutination test (STAT) is evaluated for the diagnostic efficiency in brucellosis Korea. A total of 345 bovine samples were collected from regional veterinary branch under national brucellosis monitoring program from January 2010 to June 2012 in Korea. These samples were diagnosed as suspected serum and brucellosis positive by the Rose Bengal test (RBT) and the STAT, respectively. The STAT was compared and evaluated with three serological test such as the indirect-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (I-ELISA), competitive-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (C-ELISA) and fluorescence polarisation assay (FPA) prescribed for international trade by OIE. Among the 345 bovine serum samples, 302 (87.5%) were diagnosed as positive in the STAT, while 215 (62.3%), 223 (64.6%) and 194 (56.2%) serum samples were diagnosed as positive for brucellosis in the I-ELISA, C-ELISA and FPA, respectively. The STAT showed quite high positive results as compared with three prescribed tests of OIE. FPA, I-ELISA and C-ELISA have shown 60.6%, 64.9% and 67.2% correlation, respectively as compared to the STAT. However correlations of three prescribed tests ranged high 84.1~97.7%. Especially, correlation between I-ELISA and C-ELISA is quite high, 97.7%. These results suggest that the STAT has shown many false-positive reactions. Therefore, additional serological test, such as ELISAs and FPA, would be necessary to adopt as a confirmatory test in the national surveillance program of bovine brucellosis in Korea.