Comparison of RPR and ELISA with TPHA for the Diagnosis of Syphilis: Implication for Updating Syphilis Point-of-Care Tests in Ethiopia

摘要

Background Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the spirochete Treponema pallidum, and it persists to be a major public health problem in Africa, including Ethiopia. Syphilis diagnosis is made by either nontreponemal or treponemal approaches, though in developing countries the diagnosis relies mostly on nonspecific tests due to several reasons. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess the sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and agreement of rapid plasma reagin (RPR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with Treponema pallidum hemagglutination assay (TPHA) as a gold standard for the diagnosis of syphilis.