@article{oai:nagasaki-u.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004536,
 author = {Kitashoji, Emi and Koizumi, Nobuo and Lacuesta, Talitha Lea V. and Usuda, Daisuke and Ribo, Maricel R. and Tria, Edith S. and Go, Winston S. and Kojiro, Maiko and Parry, Christopher M. and Dimaano, Efren M. and Villarama, Jose B. and Ohnishi, Makoto and Suzuki, Motoi and Ariyoshi, Koya},
 issue = {6},
 journal = {PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases},
 month = {Jun},
 note = {Background Leptospirosis is an important but largely under-recognized public health problem in the tropics. Establishment of highly sensitive and specific laboratory diagnosis is essential to reveal the magnitude of problem and to improve treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of a recombinant LigA protein based IgM ELISA during outbreaks in the clinical-setting of a highly endemic country. Methodology/Principal Findings A prospective study was conducted from October 2011 to September 2013 at a national referral hospital for infectious diseases in Manila, Philippines. Patients who were hospitalized with clinically suspected leptospirosis were enrolled. Plasma and urine were collected on admission and/or at discharge and tested using the LigA-IgM ELISA and a whole cellbased IgM ELISA. Sensitivity and specificity of these tests were evaluated with cases diagnosed by microscopic agglutination test (MAT), culture and LAMP as the composite reference standard and blood bank donors as healthy controls: the mean+3 standard deviation optical density value of healthy controls was used as the cut-off limit (0.062 for the LigA-IgM ELISA and 0.691 for the whole cell-based IgM ELISA). Of 304 patients enrolled in the study, 270 (89.1%) were male and the median age was 30.5 years; 167 (54.9%) were laboratory confirmed. The sensitivity and ROC curve AUC for the LigA-IgM ELISA was significantly greater than the whole cell-based IgM ELISA (69.5% vs. 54.3%, p<0.01; 0.90 vs. 0.82, p<0.01) on admission, but not at discharge. The specificity of LigA-IgM ELISA and whole cell-based IgM ELISA were not significantly different (98% vs. 97%). Among 158 MAT negative patients, 53 and 28 were positive by LigA- and whole cell-based IgM ELISA, respectively; if the laboratory confirmation was re-defined by LigA-IgM ELISA and LAMP, the clinical findings were more characteristic of leptospirosis than the diagnosis based on MAT/ culture/LAMP. Conclusions/Significance The newly developed LigA-IgM ELISA is more sensitive than the whole cell-based IgM based ELISA. Although the final diagnosis must be validated by more specific tests, LigAIgM ELISA could be a useful diagnostic test in a real clinical-setting, where diagnosis is needed in the early phase of infection., PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 9(6), e0003879; 2015},
 title = {Diagnostic Accuracy of Recombinant Immunoglobulin-like Protein A-Based IgM ELISA for the Early Diagnosis of Leptospirosis in the Philippines},
 volume = {9},
 year = {2015}
}