A comparison of galactomannan-ELISA and a newly developed galactomannan-LATEX test in the serologic diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis in patients with hematologic malignancies.

We compared the sensitivity and specificity of galactomannan enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (GM-ELISA) with that of a newly developed version of the commercially available latex agglutination test (GM-LATEX) in our patient population. Serum samples were collected from 144 healthy adult donors (controls); another 17 consecutive hematologic malignancy (HM) patients with probable or proven invasive aspergillosis (IA) were tested. Clinical, microbiological, and pathological data were obtained. The sensitivity of the GM-LATEX test was 53% per patient and 66% per sample and that of the GM-ELISA test was 41% per patient and 21% per sample. Both tests demonstrated a specificity of 99%. The GM-LATEX test demonstrated a superior sensitivity in terms of detecting galactomannan and thus may be useful in the diagnosis of IA in patients with HM.