Find in Library

Human cryptosporidiosis remains underdiagnosed, and rapid/accurate diagnosis is of clinical importance. Diagnosis of the <i>Cryptosporidium</i> oocyst in stool samples by conventional microscopy is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and requires skillful experience. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the usefulness of a coproantigen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test in detecting <i>Cryptosporidium</i> spp. from fecal specimens. For this aim, we evaluated the performances of a commercial ELISA (CoproELISA <i>Cryptosporidium</i> kit, Savyon Diagnostics, Israel) for the detection of <i>Cryptosporidium</i> spp. in random clinical stool samples through a multicenter study. The sensitivity and specificity for coproantigen ELISA were 98.86% and 94.32%, respectively. The coproantigen ELISA results indicate that the simple, rapid, reliable, and standardized immunoassay test is sensitive and specific for routine diagnosis, and may be useful for large-scale epidemiological studies of cryptosporidiosis.