Laboratory evaluation of automated enzyme linked fluorescent assay for detecting serum specific IgG antibodies against rubella virus

The VIDAS rubella IgG(RBG) is a new, automated, enzyme-linkad fluorescent assay(ELFA) for detecting IgG antibodies to rubella virus in serum. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the qualitative and quantitative VIDAS RBG as laboratory tests in the rapid detecting anti-rubella IgG antibodies. Simultaneous parallel testing was performed by using the qualitative and quantitative RBG along with RUBAZYME(ABBOTT LABORATORIES) and the standard hemagglutination-inhibition(HI) test(R-HI kit, SEIKEN) on 200 blood samples submitted for anti-rubella IgG antibodies testing from patients at the VGH-Kaohsiung(Mar.-Sep., 1993). The qualitative and quantitative VIDAS RBG and RUBAZYME assay were compared to the standard R-HI test. Significant differences among the sensitivities of these three methods were found (100% sensitivity for the qualitative VIDAS RBG, 88.89% for the quantitative VIDAS RBG and 97.67% for the RUBAZYME). However, the specificities of these three methods were all the same, 100%. With these results we can conclude that the qualitative VIDAS RBG will provide a very good, precise and reliable method to determine serum specific IgG antibodies against rubella virus. Furthermore, the VIDAS RBG is fully automated and time-saving procedures (for every batch of test, it takes 25 minutes with VIDAS RBG, 2.5 hours with RUBAZYME and 4.5 hours with R-HI) in clinical laboratories.