[Serological evaluation of human T lymphotropic virus type-I infection in routine hospital samples, especially using serodia.HTLV-I].

Particle agglutination (PA; Serodia-ATLA) and ELISA (Ei-test ATL) assays have been used as routine anti-HTLV-I antibody detection in Japan. However, inconsistent results were obtained by the above methods. We wished to develop criteria for serological confirmation of HTLV-I infection in Hospital samples. Sera obtained in our Hospital from October, 1988 to September, 1989 were tested by five methods of PA (Serodia-ATLA), new PA (improved on the PA; Serodia.HTLV-I), ELISA-I (coated by HTLV-I infected cell lysates as antigens; Ei-test ATL), ELISA-II (coated by recombinant gag-env hybrid proteins as antigens) and IF. The HTLV-I seropositive rates using five methods were not different, ranged from 29.7 to 32.3% in 155 sera. However, PA assays appeared more false positive and rare false negative in some high titer sera. 13 sera as demonstrated negative for ELISA-I and positive for PA (ELISA-I(-)/PA(+] were reevaluated. As results, the antibody were confirmed in only 3 by new PA, 1 by ELISA-II and 2 cases by IF, respectively. On the other hand, 2 by new PA, 4 by ELISA-II and 2 by IF in 18 sera with ELISA-I(+)/PA(-) were interpreted as positive. Therefore, new PA is a remarkable improvement on the PA current model.