Diagnosis of Ocular Toxocariasis by Serum and Aqueous Humor IgG ELISA
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 9, 2026
Obtaining Highly Purified Toxoplasma gondii Oocysts by a Discontinuous Cesium Chloride Gradient
Published on: November 3, 2009
Li Huang1, Limei Sun1, Chengxi Liu1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Purpose:
Ocular toxocariasis (OT) is a worldwide ocular parasitic infection and is especially sight-threatening in children. Because of the clinical manifestation diversity, OT has frequently been misdiagnosed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of anti-toxocara immunoglobulin G (IgG) in intraocular fluid (IF) and serum in OT.
Methods:
IF and serum were collected from patients with clinically diagnosed OT and non-OT uveitis. The level of anti-toxocara IgG was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The data were statistically analyzed in anti-toxocara IgG and the Goldmann-Witmer coefficient (GWC) between groups. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC ROC) was performed to assess the diagnostic value of serum and IF anti-toxocara IgG and the GWC.
Results:
A total of 290 participants, 128 (44.1%) with OT and 162 (55.9%) with non-OT uveitis, were included in this study. The default serum anti-toxocara IgG cutoff value of 11 U had 72.1% sensitivity and 95.5% specificity. With the optimized cutoff value of 8.2 U, the AUC was 0.886 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.830-0.929, P < 0.0001), sensitivity increased to 80.2%, and specificity was 94.0%. With an IF anti-toxocara IgG cutoff value of 1.8 U, the AUC was 0.934 (95% CI = 0.892-0.963, P < 0.0001), sensitivity was as high as 88.4%, and specificity was 96.4%.
Conclusions:
Our study proposes novel diagnostic cutoff values of serum and IF anti-toxocara IgG for OT, which are 8.2 U and 1.8 U, respectively.
Translational Relevance:
This study will improve the accuracy of diagnosis in patients with OT.
