Comparison and Analysis of Three Serological Testing Methods in Detection of Syphilis

Objective To investigate the possible cause of false positive result of syphilis specific antibody detection,and to provide valuable experimental evidence for the clinical treatment of syphilis.Methods Serum samples of 9,456 outpatients from January,2005 to April,2008 in our hospital were collected to detect the non-specific lipid antigen of syphilis using TRUST.TPPA and ELISA were used to detect Treponema pallidum(Tp) specific antibody. Results Of 9,456 examined subjects,540 were confirmed to be infected syphilis by TPPA,with the detection rate of 5.71 %.318 cases were positive by TRUST in 540 patients with definite diagnosis of syphilis,with the sensitivity of 58.9%.42 cases were negative by the TPPA,with the specificity of 88.3%.538 cases were positive by ELISA,with the sensitivity of 99.6%.3 cases were negative by TPPA,with the specificity of 99.4%.The positive rate of detection of syphilis was not significant between TPPA and ELISA(χ2=0.2,P0.05),but that of TPPA was significantly higher than that of TRUST(χ2=222,P0.05). Conclusions TRUST and ELISA methods combined with medical history and health check-up results are recommended to be used as an effective approach to improve the accuracy of syphilis diagnosis.