EVALUATION OF 2 COMMERCIAL ENZYME IMMUNOASSAYS FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF HELICOBACTER-PYLORI INFECTION

Sera from 65 patients with upper gastrointestinal tract symptoms and proven Helicobacter pylori infection, and from 42 negative controls were tested with two commercial EIAs (GAP test, Bio-Rad; and ECP test, Biometra) and two non-commercial EIAs, one performed with whole sonicated cells and the other with acid extract of Helicobacter pylori as antigen. The GAP assay showed a sensitivity of 83.1 % and a specificity of 47.6 %. The ECP assay showed a sensitivity of 87.7 % and a specificity of 61.9 %. For both non-commercial EIAs these figures were 87.7 % and 88.1 %, respectively. Independent of the interpretive criteria established by the manufacturers, receiver operating characteristic curves were plotted for better evaluation of the four methods. Both commercial tests showed a lower probability of yielding a correct diagnosis than the non-commercial tests (p < 0.05). Although commercial EIAs are convenient for the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection, the accuracy of the two commercial tests evaluated in this study was lower compared to that of the two non-commercial EIAs.