Evaluation of the Performance of Various Diagnostic Modalities Available for the Detection of Scrub Typhus in Acute Undifferentiated Febrile Illness (AUFI) Cases at a Teaching Hospital in North Chhattisgarh, India

作者：Dwivedi PP, Singh AK, Murthy R, Dwivedi S, Verma AR · 发表于：Cureus · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.7759/cureus.78977 · 被引用次数：24

INTRODUCTION: Due to the lack of adequate data on the effectiveness of diagnostic methods and the ambiguous clinical symptoms that overlap with other febrile illnesses, diagnosing scrub typhus is difficult. This study aims to compare the accuracy of various investigations required for the diagnosis of scrub typhus like immunoglobulin G/immunoglobulin M (IgG/IgM) rapid test, IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from a patient's serum. METHODS: This is a prospective study that includes all clinically suspected patients who visited the Outpatient Department (OPD) of Medicine and were admitted to the Medicine wards and Intensive Care Units of Rajmata Shrimati Devendra Kumari Singhdeo Government Medical College, Ambikapur, Chhattisgarh, India. The patients' samples were tested initially using the IgG/IgM rapid test, further confirmed by ELISA, and then subjected to RT-PCR for final confirmation. RESULTS: A total of 1,620 cases of acute undifferentiated febrile illness were tested, of which 82 tested positive for scrub typhus IgM rapid test. These 82 cases were further tested for confirmation using IgM ELISA, which showed 110 positive results. Additionally, RT-PCR was applied to all 1,620 samples using the DIAGsure Tropical Fever Panel Kit (3B BlackBio Dx Limited, Bhopal, India), resulting in 98 samples testing positive for scrub typhus. Both the ELISA and the rapid diagnostic test offer high capacity for discrimination, ...