Evaluation of chick red blood cells stabilized with various aldehydes in the indirect haemagglutination (IHA) test for diagnosis of neurocysticercosis Parija Subhash Chandra, Sahu Priyadarshi Soumyaranjan Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry-605 006, India Abstract The present study was carried out to evaluate the use of chick cells in the indirect haemagglutination (IHA) test for the diagnosis of neurocysticercosis. Patients attending epilepsy clinic, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, (JIPMER) Hospital, Pondicherry were included in the present study. The study included 15 cases of neurocysticercosis with single small cystic lesion, 15 cases of neurocysticercosis with multiple cystic lesions, 15 cases of neurological disorders other than cysticercosis (meningitis, etc.) and 30 normal healthy people as controls. Results of the study showed that agglutinated chick red blood corpuscles (RBCs) settled after 30 to 45 min of incubation at room temperature and demonstrated a definite pattern of haemagglutination with the cysticercus positive sera. In case of most of the sera from patients with neurocysticercosis, the IHA using double aldehyde stabilized (DAS) chick cells gave 2–4 times higher titer than the chick cells stabilized by single aldehydes such as formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde or pyruvic aldehyde. The IHA employing DAS chick cells was found to be equally sensitive with that of the IHA using DAS human RBCs. A total of 27 out of 30 sera from the cases of neurocysticercosis were positive for cysticercus antibodies by the IHA employing the chick DAS as well as human DAS cells sensitized with cysticercus antigen. In conclusion, results of the present study show that the IHA using DAS chick RBCs instead of human ‘O’ RBCs will be a useful procedure with equal sensitivity for the diagnosis of neuerocysticercosis. Top Keywords Indirect haemagglutination, Chick RBCs, Double aldehyde stabilized cells, Haemagglutination, dehydrogenase, Neurocysticercosis. Top |