COMPARISON OF INDIRECT IMMUNOFLUORESCENCE ASSAY WITH IMMUNOBLOT FOR SERODIAGNOSIS OF NEUROBORRELIOSIS

Immunoblot technique was used for diagnosis of neurologic complications in Lyme borreliosis. Results were compared with those obtained from indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA). We tested sera from 18 healthy blood donors as well as sera from 10 patients with clinically diagnosed neuroborreliosis. ROC curves analysis was used to assess positive and negative diagnosis criteria of IFA and of immunoblot. The latter was found to be more sensitive than IFA for immunological diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis since 9 of 10 patients sera were positive by immunoblot and only 5 by IFA. Concerning CSF, 5 of 9 patients were positive by immunoblot and only 3 by IFA. This study points out the interest of immunoblot for the biological diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis with neurologic complications.