THE RESPECTIVE ADVANTAGES OF COMPLEMENT-FIXATION AND ELISA FOR ROUTINE DIAGNOSIS OF CYTOMEGALOVIRUS-INFECTION

  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 35  (6) , 187-190
Abstract
Complement fixation (CF) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests for cytomegalovirus performed on 270 sera of hospitalized patients show a positive correlation. As a general rule, ELISA is more sensitive than CF, except for a few sera collected from patients with immunological disorders. When 2 sequential sera are available, the CF remains a reliable and inexpensive method; when only 1 serum can be obtained, the probability of an active CMV infection can be estimated on the IgM/IgG ratio. In 26% of the patients, the ratio was .gtoreq. 1. ELISA is twice as expensive as the CF test. To reduce its cost, a simple method for preparing ELISA antigen from commercially-obtained CF antigens is described.

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