Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2009) 103, 420—422 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevierhealth.com/journals/trst SHORT COMMUNICATION Comparison of three ELISAs for the routine diagnosis of human T-lymphotropic virus infection in a high-prevalence setting in Peru Kristien Verdonck a,b,* , Elsa González a,c , Fernando Maldonado a , Doris Agapito a , Sonia Van Dooren d , Anne-Mieke Vandamme d , Alfonso Silva-Santisteban a , Guido Vanham b,e , Daniel Clark a,f , Eduardo Gotuzzo a,g a Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 430, Lima 31, Peru b Virology Unit, Department of Microbiology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nationalestraat 155, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium c Departamento de Medicina, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 430, Lima 31, Peru d Rega Institute, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Minderbroedersstraat 10, 3000 Leuven, Belgium e Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences, University of Antwerp, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk (Antwerp), Belgium f Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 430, Lima 31, Peru g Departamento de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Tropicales y Dermatológicas, Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 262, Lima 31, Peru Received 10 August 2008; received in revised form 1 December 2008; accepted 1 December 2008 Available online 19 January 2009 KEYWORDS Human T-lymphotropic virus 1; Human T-lympho- tropic virus 2; Summary To compare three human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) ELISAs in a high-prevalence setting, we recruited 300 adults: 125 relatives of HTLV-infected subjects and 175 patients with possible diagnoses of HTLV-associated diseases. Sera were tested with Platelia, Murex, and Ortho ELISA. Samples with positive or discordant ELISA underwent confirmatory Inno-Lia testing. Inno-Lia gave 85/300 HTLV-1-positive and 1/300 HTLV-2-positive results. The positive predictive value was 98% for Platelia, and 100% for Murex and Ortho. Six samples had discordant ∗ Corresponding author. Present address: Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 430, Lima 31, Peru. Tel.: +51 1 4823910; fax: +51 1 4823404. E-mail address: tverdonck@itg.be (K. Verdonck). 0035-9203/$ — see front matter © 2008 Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.trstmh.2008.12.002