Comparison of three commercially available assays for detection of varicella-zoster virus antibody.

Three commercially available diagnostic assays for the detection of antibodies to varicella-zoster virus were evaluated to determine which would be the most suitable for our clinical laboratory. Three different methods were examined: an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), latex agglutination (LA), and an indirect fluorescent-antibody technique. For the 141 serum specimens tested, the ELISA had an agreement of 90.1% and LA had an agreement of 92.2% with the indirect immunofluorescent-antibody technique. The ELISA had a lower sensitivity (85.6%) than LA (100.0%), but suffered from a low specificity (78.4%) compared with the ELISA (98.0%).