Most studies published in the literature addressing the diagnosis
of human strongyloidiasis in immunocompromised individuals are
based on seroepidemiological surveys [13–17]. Few studies have
been conducted for the detection of IgG anti-S. stercoralis in immunocompromised
individuals based on diagnostic parameters.
Abdul-Fattah et al. (1995) [20] demonstrated the usefulness of
ELISA for serological samples of immunocompromised individuals
obtaining 100% of specificity and 13% of sensitivity, using thawed
and sonicated Strongyloides larvae as antigen. However the sensitivity
rose to 100% when anti-human biotinylated IgG and avidinperoxidase
conjugates were used to improve the performance of
the reaction. Schaffel et al. (2001) [21] showed that ELISA presented
results of 68% sensitivity and 89% specificity using antigen from infective
larvae of S. stercoralis and serum samples from patients with
hematologic malignancies. Recombinant proteins have been used
as alternatives to crude extract with the aim to improve the diagnostic
value for detection of strongyloidiasis, using ELISA [22,23]. However
studies need to be conducted using recombinant proteins in
immunocompromised individuals.