[Detection of Chlamydia trachomatis in various pathological products. Comparison between direct IF-Chlamydiazyme and...

Two immunologic technics of Chlamydia trachomatis detection: IF (Microtrack Syva-Bio-Merieux) and ELISA (Chlamydiazyme Abbott) are compared with cell cultures revealed by giemsa on 177 and 210 samples respectively. Sensibility, specificity, agreement among methods and predictive values are given for each nature of prelevement. The direct fluorescent antibody test is globaly more sensitive (94.7%) than Chlamydiazyme (78.9%), but less specific (96% against 100%). Two major inconveniences of IF are not recovered with Chlamydiazyme (extreme fastidiousness and subjective reading). The discordances between the three methods are discussed, as well as their respectives advantages and inconveniences.