Immunodiagnosis of human and porcine cysticercosis. Detection of antibodies and parasite products.

In this paper we report the immunodiagnosis of cysticercosis by the detection of antibodies in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients, by standard enzyme immunoassay (EIA) which gave 90% sensitivity. We are also showing the results obtained with a double homologous polyclonal or monoclonal antibody based EIA that detects parasite products: we analysed CSF of patients and obtained sensitivities ranging from 14% to 75% for single antibody systems and 90% when analysing the samples with two or three systems simultaneously. The sera of infected pigs were also evaluated; with one monoclonal antibody we could detect 79% of positive samples. The good results obtained encourage the standardization and improvement of the technique for diagnostic as well as for epidemiologic purposes.