Abstract
Rapid diagnostics provide actionable information for patient care at the time and site of an encounter with the health care system. The mainstay of infectious diseases care is early detection (case finding) and treatment completion, but for many, it is hard to identify positive individuals, as is the case of infection with low burden in schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease common in the tropics and subtropics. We developed a new, accurate, and fast Dot blot methodology (iDot) to indirectly detect Schistosoma mansoni in individuals with very low parasite burden using urine samples. Accuracy of 0.74 was obtained with a significant difference between negative and positive patients and a substantial agreement was found when iDot was compared with five available methods. Our analysis also revealed the superiority of iDot in detecting negative individuals from non-endemic sites, thus, presenting the lowest rate of false positives. This new method called iDot is convenient and suitable for qualitative and quantitative detection of schistosomiasis in individuals with low parasite burden.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the PLUMMA-3D — 3D printing facility of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Fiocruz — for the printing of the iDot platform.
Funding
This work was supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) [grant number Universal 432677/2018–6, 2018], Minas Gerais Research Foundation (Fapemig) [scholarship], The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) [scholarship, financial support], and Merieux Foundation [2018].
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RFQG, MLP, and OTO drafted the manuscript and carried out the assays, and analysis and interpretation of these data. RFQG and NK conceived the study, designed the study protocol, and critically revised the manuscript for intellectual content. MLP, AO, CP, CA, ST, and AO carried out the follow up of endemic patients. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This work has the approval of the Ethical Research Committee of the Rene Rachou Institute (CEPSH/CPqRR 03/2008).
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Pedrosa, M.L.C., de Oliveira, A.K., Pereira, C. et al. Dot blot platform as a novel diagnostic kit: rapid, accurate, and on-site detection of Schistosoma mansoni in urine samples of hard to detect individuals. Parasitol Res 120, 3795–3803 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-021-07312-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-021-07312-7