Comparison of a latex agglutination test with five other methods for determining the presence of antibody against cytomegalovirus.

A latex agglutination test for determination of antibody against cytomegalovirus was compared with five other methods: a solid-phase fluorescent immunoassay, an indirect hemagglutination test, two solid-phase enzyme immunoassays, and an indirect fluorescent-antibody method, with sera collected from 210 random blood donors. Of the sera tested, 28% were positive for anti-cytomegalovirus by concordance of four or more methods. The latex agglutination test performed well, with a sensitivity of 100%, a specificity of 99%, and positive and negative predictive values of 97 and 100%, respectively.