Developments in Diagnosis of Visceral Leishmaniasis in the Elimination Era

Table 1

Sensitivity and specificities of various tests in VL diagnosis.

	Methods	Sample used	Test time	Skill level required	Sensitivity; (%)	Specificity; (%)	References
Parasitological diagnosis	Splenic aspiration	Spleen tissue	Hours	High	93–99	100	[15]
	Bone marrow aspiration/biopsy	Bone marrow	Hours	High	53–86	100	[16, 17]
	Lymph node aspiration	Lymph	Hours	High	53–65	100	[3, 16]
	Culture	Spleen or bone marrow	Days	Medium	97–100	100	[11].
Immunological diagnosis	IFAT	Serum/plasma	Hours	High	80–100	96–100	[18]
	Direct agglutination test	Serum/plasma	Days	Medium	94.80	97.10	[13, 19–21]
	ELISA	Serum/plasma	Hours	Medium	93–100	97–98	[21, 22]
		Saliva	Hours	Medium	83.30	88.6–100	[23]
	Immunochromatic strip test	Serum	Minutes	Low	96.3–100	90.1–100	[24–26]
		Blood	Minutes	Low	96–100	90.8–100	[25, 26]
		Saliva	Minutes	Low	82.50	84.6–91.48	[23]
		Urine	Minutes	Low	96.40	66.2–100	[27–29]
	Immunoblotting assay	Serum/plasma	Hours	Medium	83–94%	90%	[30]
	IFN- release assay (IGRA)	Whole blood	Days	Medium	80–85	100	[31]
	KAtex test (KAtex)	Urine	Hours	Medium	48–87	89.00–100	[32, 33]
Molecular diagnosis	PCR	Whole blood	Hours	High	70–100	85–99	[34]
		Buccal swab	Hours	High	83.00	90.56	[35]
		Urine	Hours	High	88.0	100	[36]
		Bone marrow	Hours	High	95.30	92.60	[37]
	PCR ELISA	Whole blood	Hours	High	83.90	100	[38]
	qPCR	Whole blood	Hours	High	91.3–100%	95.0–100%	[39]
	Oligo C-test	Whole blood	Hours	High	96.2	90.0	[40, 41]
		Lymph node	Hours	High	96.8	NA	[40]
		Bone marrow	Hours	High	96.9	NA	[40]
	LAMP	Whole blood	Hours	Medium	83.0	98.0	[42]
		Buffy coat	Hours	Medium	90.7	100	[43]