Introduction:

Serological methods are the most commonly used for the microbiological diagnosis of brucellosis. Brucellacapt® has the advantage of detecting agglutinating and non-agglutinating antibodies against Brucella spp. at any point in the evolution of the disease.

Objectives:

Evaluate and apply the commercially available serological system Brucellacapt® for detection of antibodies against Brucella spp.

Methods:

A nested case-control observational study was conducted of services and systems from January 2015 to June 2016 at the Spirochaete and Brucella National Reference Laboratory. Evaluation was performed of 50 serum samples from cases and 100 from controls using Brucellacapt®. The system was also used in 695 serum samples from clinically or epidemiologically suspected cases, which were confirmed by ELISA.

Results:

Brucellacapt® showed 100% sensitivity, 83 % specificity, 54.6 % reactivity and 16.4% positivity in the samples studied. Presence of the following antibodies was confirmed by ELISA: IgM (21.2 %), IgG (6.1 %) and IgM + IgG (7.6 %). Two hundred forty-six samples and another seven were reactive and positive, respectively, only by Brucellacapt®.

Conclusions:

Brucellacapt® contributed to antibody detection in serum samples from suspected cases, with acceptable diagnostic sensitivity and specificity values. This result suggests its implementation in the Cuban national network of laboratories to strengthen the diagnosis and surveillance of human brucellosis in Cuba.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )