The comparison of monospot and ELISA tests on diagnosis of the infection of epstein barr virus which is a DNA virus

Objective: Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) belongs to the Herpesviridae family is a DNA virus that widely seen throughout the world and it can be transmitted through close contact, oropharyngeal secretions, blood and contaminated belongings. EBV infections generally emerge in childhood and remain asymptomatic. The clinical diagnosis is based on haematological and serological findings. Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Rubella and Toxoplasma gondii infections and certain haematogical malignancies may cause similar clinical symptoms with EBV infections. In addition, primer infection mostly acute and may be fatal. For these reasons the clinical diagnosis of EBV is very important. In this study, the comparison of the results obtained from Paul-Bunnell Test (Monospot test-Heterofil Antibody Test) and ELISA test is aimed. Methods: In this study, 100 blood samples obtained from the patients with EBV suspicion at Gaziantep University, Şahinbey Research and Application Hospital in 2015 were investigated. The ages of the patients vary between 1 and 76 and 54 of (54%) cases were male and 46 of (46%) were female. Paul-Bunnell test and ELISA test were used in the study. The data obtained from the study was analyzed with SPSS package program. Findings: As a result of the monospot test, 81 cases found as VCA IgG positive, 15 cases found as VCA IgM positive, 76 cases found as EBNA IgG positive, 26 cases found as Paul-Bunnel Heterophil Antibody (PB-HA) positive. No statistically significant difference was found for the two test used in the study according to gender and age. All of the 15 cases found as VCA IgM positive with monospot test also found positive and all of the 81 cases found as VCA IgG positive with monospot test also found as VCA IgG positive with ELISA. In addition, all the patients determined as negative with monospot test also found as negative with ELISA. Conclusion: Considering the results obtained from the comparison of the two tests it has seen that the results of the two tests are coherent with each other and efficiency of these two test is same with each other.