Saliva and Serum as Diagnostic Media for Antibody to Hepatitis A Virus in Adults and in Individuals Who Have Received an Inactivated Hepatitis A Vaccine

Abstract

Saliva was evaluated as a diagnostic fluid for screening individuals for evidence of previous hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection and for evidence of seroconversion after vaccination with inactivated hepatitis A vaccine. A new and simple saliva collection method and an assay for detection of HAV antibody were used; the assay used an antibody capture format. There was complete concordance between the results of saliva-based assays and those of serum-based assays, both of which were used for determining previous natural HAV exposure. However, for vaccine recipients, 100% concordance for saliva-based and serum-based assays occurred only at serum titers of > 9,000 mIU/mL, which were determined with use of the modified HAVAB assay. Saliva provides adequate sensitivity and specificity for determining naturally acquired HAV infection, although it is not useful in clinical trials for determining seroconversion after HAV vaccination.

Diagnosis of Hepatitis A Virus Infection: a Molecular Approach

“…Saliva tests have been reported as an alternative to conventional serum testing for anti-HAV due to their simplicity of sample collection (115,177,178). Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of implementing saliva testing as screening tool in outbreak investigations and epidemiological studies (110,115,140). However, the sensitivity of detecting anti-HAV in saliva is 1 to 3 log 10 units lower than that with serum (156,177,178; CDC, unpublished data).…”

Evaluation of Events Occurring at Mucosal Surfaces: Techniques Used To Collect and Analyze Mucosal Secretions and Cells

“…It is often necessary to first disrupt and digest specimens in order to isolate cells. This digestion step is critical, in particular for organs with a low number of lymphoid (47), and different companies market specific devices to collect and store individual samples. These devices are used routinely in clinical trials.…”

Oral fluid as a medium for the detection of hepatitis B surface antigen

“…Previous studies have described the different components of oral fluid [Heathcote et al, 1974;Squier and Johnson, 1975;Alter et al, 1977;Ben Aryeh et al, 1985;, the usefulness of a collection device [Parry et al, 1987, and the suitability of oral fluid as an alternative medium for the detection of antibodies to several viruses [Archibald et al, 1986;Parry, , 1993Thieme et al, 1992;Laufer et al, 1995;De Cock et al, 2004].…”