Publications by authors named "H R Hilgart"
TB remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. However, most infected immunocompetent individuals are asymptomatic and only 5-10% of these will eventually develop active TB during their lifetime (typically within 2 years after exposure). Therefore, rapid diagnosis and efficient management of asymptomatic infected individuals who are at the highest risk of progression and transmission remain major clinical and public health challenges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDetection of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in dried blood spots.
Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis
September 2021
Article Synopsis
- - The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the creation of many serologic tests, leading researchers to validate dried blood spots (DBS) as a substitute for traditional blood collection methods.
- - The study found that antibodies could be effectively extracted from DBS samples stored properly, showing high agreement with standard serum tests for detecting anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
- - Using DBS for serologic testing is advantageous because it's low-cost, easy to collect, stable for shipping, and can help determine the antibody prevalence in large populations.
Background: Dried blood spots (DBS) are an established specimen type for clinical testing given their low cost, ease of collection and storage, and convenient shipping capabilities through the postal system. These attributes are complementary to the expansion of SARS-CoV-2 serologic testing, which may be used to inform community seroprevalence rates.
Methods: The Luminex xMAP SARS-CoV-2 Multi-Antigen assay utilizes magnetic beads labeled with three viral antigens (nucleocapsid [NC], receptor binding domain [RBD], spike S1 subunit) to detect anti-viral IgG-class antibodies, and has Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for use in serum and plasma.
Article Synopsis
- - The study aimed to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among health care workers using a voluntary two-stage testing program initiated by the Mayo Clinic on June 15, 2020.
- - Out of 81,113 eligible health care workers, 29,606 participated, with 14.5% showing reactive results to initial tests; confirmatory testing indicated an overall seroprevalence rate of 0.60%.
- - The findings revealed that the seroprevalence was lower than in other hospitals, with variations linked to geographical regions and the age of participants, and suggested possible connections to community disease levels.
The role of serologic testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), in both the clinical and public health settings, will continue to evolve as we gain increasing insight into our immune response to the virus. Here, we evaluated four high-throughput serologic tests for detection of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies, from Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL), Epitope Diagnostics, Inc. (San Diego, CA), Euroimmun (Lubeck, Germany), and Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics (Rochester, NY), using a panel of serially collected serum samples ( = 224) from 56 patients with confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), healthy donor sera from 2018, and a cross-reactivity serum panel collected in early 2020.
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