Blissful Ignorance When Managing Pregnant Women With Syphilis and Nonreactive Nontreponemal Tests?

Syphilis.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial disease relevant to pregnancy because it has the potential to cause congenital syphilis if it occurs at any time during pregnancy. An upsurge in cases of syphilis in women and hence congenital syphilis has been reported worldwide recently. 40% of cases can result in spontaneous miscarriages, stillbirth, non-immune hydrops, fetal growth restriction and perinatal death, as well as serious sequelae in liveborn infected children. Pregnancy complications can be avoided by early detection and treatment in the antenatal period. All antenatal women should be screened for syphilis at the first antenatal visit. There is no gold standard for diagnostic test of syphilis. A combination of serological tests consisting of treponemal and a non treponemal test are used for diagnosis. Screening with non-treponemal tests such as rapid plasma reagin or venereal disease research laboratory test combined with confirmation of reactive individuals with treponemal tests such as the fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption assay is the usual cost effective approach. Those at risk should be retested in the third trimester. Treatment during pregnancy should be with penicillin depending upon the stage of the maternal infection. All neonates born to mothers who have reactive nontreponemal and treponemal test results should be evaluated.

BackgroundBiologic false positive (BFP) non-treponemal test results, defined as specimens with reactive non-treponemal (NT) and non-reactive treponemal test results are received and processed by United States public health surveillance programs....

Introduction: Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum, and results in considerable morbidity and mortality. Congenital syphilis can lead to miscarriage, prematurity, bone deformities, hearing loss and other important clinical changes. Objective: To analyze prenatal quality and clinical conditions of newborns exposed to syphilis in a public maternity hospital in Rio Branco-Acre. Method: This is a cross-sectional study that included 92 mothers diagnosed with syphilis during pregnancy, attended from July to December 2017. Two pregnant women had fetal death, and the final sample consisted of 90 newborns exposed to syphilis. An interview with the postpartum woman was used, analysis of the pregnant woman's card and search for information from the pregnant woman's records and newborns. It was considered confirmed case of syphilis in pregnant woman: a) All pregnant women who presented non-treponemal reagent test with any titration and reagent treponemal test performed during prenatal care; b) Pregnant woman with reagent treponemal test and nonreactive or unreacted nontreponemal test, without previous treatment record. To characterize congenital syphilis we considered: a) newborn whose mother was not diagnosed with syphilis during pregnancy and who presented a nontreponemal test reactive with any titration at the time of delivery; b) child whose mother was not diagnosed with syphilis during pregnancy and had a non-treponemal test reagent at the time of delivery; c) newborns whose mother presented a reactive treponemal test and a nonreactive non-treponemal test at the moment of delivery, without previous treatment record. Results: Most newborns were born in normal delivery (65.5%), 17.8% had acute fetal distress and 11.2% required resuscitation maneuvers. Prematurity occurred in 10% of births and 12.2% of them were small for gestational age. Complete prenatal care was performed by 29.5% of the mothers, following the recommendations of the Ministry of Health of seven visits to the Health Unit and or Health Professional. From the 90 pregnant women, 79 had a reactive treponemal test when admitted to the maternity ward. 29.3% of them performed the treatment properly. In the analysis about the treatment of the sexual partner, it was reported that 58% did not adhere to syphilis treatment. Conclusion: The prenatal quality of pregnant women with syphilis was lower than that recommended by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, although there are few cases of syphilis as the primary outcome in newborns with childbirth with mothers diagnosed with syphilis. Prenatal, newborn, syphilis in pregnancy, congenital syphilis.

ResumenIntroducción. Tradicionalmente, la sífilis se ha detectado con pruebas no treponémicas y se ha confirmado con pruebas treponémicas, un algoritmo diagnóstico implementado a nivel mundial.Objetivo. Evaluar el desempeño de las pruebas treponémicas y no treponémicas para detectar en forma efectiva la sífilis entre los donantes de sangre. Materiales y métodos. Se realizó un estudio transversal con 384 muestras, inicialmente reactivas para sífilis según los resultados de pruebas no treponémicas. Posteriormente, se reevaluaron todas las muestras mediante VDRL, ELISA, CLIA y FTA-ABS, esta última como prueba confirmatoria. Se calculó el coeficiente kappa para determinar la concordancia entre las pruebas no treponémicas y se estimaron los índices de desempeño. Resultados. Se determinó la concordancia entre las pruebas no treponémicas y las treponémicas. Entre la VDRL y ELISA, fue del 78,8 %, mientras que, entre la VDRL y el CLIA, fue del 76 % (p < 0,005). La concordancia entre el ELISA y el CLIA fue del 83 %. Al comparar los resultados obtenidos en las pruebas treponémicas y las no treponémicas con la FTA-ABS, la concordancia osciló entre el 44,2 y el 61,9 %. Los índices de desempeño evidenciaron que las pruebas no treponémicas y las treponémicas tienen valores de sensibilidad entre el 89,70 y el 99,39 %. El valor predictivo positivo fue más elevado en las pruebas treponémicas (CLIA = 95,27 %) y la tasa más alta de falsos positivos fue del 94,52 % en la prueba VDRL.Conclusiones. Las muestras analizadas fueron reactivas desde el inicio, lo que podría interferir en los parámetros de medición. Sin embargo, aportaron información valiosa para evaluar los algoritmos implementados.

IntroductionCDC recommends syphilis screening at least annually for sexually active MSM and screening every 3–6 months for MSM with risks such as multiple partners. MethodsIn collaboration with a large U.S....

BackgroundSyphilis has made a major comeback in China, now representing the most common communicable disease in many cities and regions. A total of 327 433 cases of syphilis were reported...

The objectives of this study were to estimate the risk of vertical HIV transmission and assess the associated factors and missed opportunities for prevention in a cohort of HIV+ pregnant women (1995-2001) treated in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, with follow-up of their children until 2005. Three data sources were compared: Information System on Reportable Diseases (SINAN), Information System on HIV+ Pregnant Women and Exposed Children (SISGHIV), and patient clinical charts. The study estimated the vertical transmission rates, factors associated with vertical transmission, and use of antiretroviral therapy. 276 HIV+ women were identified (322 pregnancies), and there were 70 HIV+ children. Overall risk of vertical HIV transmission was 27.8%. The vertical transmission rate was 40.8% in the group without prophylaxis and 1% in the group with adequate prophylaxis, i.e., a 97.5% reduction in transmission risk. Year of delivery, consultation with a specialist, and no history of injecting drug use were factors associated with adequate use of antiretroviral therapy. The study showed an important reduction in the risk of vertical transmission in pregnant women who received adequate therapy, besides identifying missed opportunities for prevention.

Syphilis screening algorithms have been reversed to take advantage of new automated treponemal tests. Screening that begins with a treponemal test identifies persons with positive treponemal and negative nontreponemal test results who were missed when screening began with a nontreponemal test. The significance of these results is uncertain. We wondered if mothers with persistently negative nontreponemal test results could transmit syphilis to their newborns. We reviewed congenital syphilis cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify all instances where (1) the mother had persistently negative nontreponemal test results (best evidence would be multiple negative nontreponemal test results with at least one >30 days after birth) and (2) the child had evidence of infection (best evidence a confirmed case, older child, stillbirth, or "probable" by the criteria of Kaufman et al.). A total of 23,863 patients with congenital syphilis had birthdates between 1991 and 2009. Of 106 mothers initially classified as having only negative nontreponemal test results reported, 20 were misclassified; the remaining 86 mothers had no infants with confirmed syphilis and no syphilitic stillbirths. The 23,757 other mothers had 284 (1.2%) infants with confirmed syphilis and 1271 (5.4%) syphilitic stillbirths. Twelve of the 86 mothers had negative nontreponemal test results more than 30 days after delivery; none of their children had convincing evidence of infection. One mother had a negative nontreponemal test result 27 days after delivery of a child with "positive x-rays" and elevated cerebrospinal fluid cell count or protein, but details were unavailable. Fifty-nine children were diagnosed at age 1 year or older; nontreponemal test results were available for 13 of the mothers, and all were positive. We found no convincing evidence of syphilis transmission from mothers with persistently negative nontreponemal test results. Only 1 case suggested that transmission may have occurred, and records were incomplete.

The incidence of congenital syphilis in the United States has decreased significantly in recent years largely because of successful efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local health departments to control syphilis in adults (1,2). Worldwide, however, syphilis continues to have a major impact on public health, and congenital syphilis remains an important cause of fetal and neonatal mortality (3). Congenital syphilis can be prevented by routine prenatal serologic screening and penicillin treatment of infected women and their sexual partners (4–6). All pregnant women should have a nontreponemal serologic test for syphilis performed at the first prenatal visit and in high-risk areas, at the beginning of the third trimester (28 weeks), and at delivery (7). No infant or mother should be discharged home from the hospital without the maternal serologic status documented at least once during pregnancy and preferably again at delivery. A nonreactive maternal nontreponemal test at delivery, however, may not exclude incubating syphilis or even primary syphilis when nontreponemal and treponemal antibodies have not yet reached detectable levels (8,9). By current methodologies, detection of treponemal infection in the asymptomatic infant of an infected mother with negative serologies is impossible. Infants born to such seronegative women are at risk of developing syphilis in the ensuing 3–14 weeks. In areas where syphilis is prevalent, consideration should be given to screening women again at the first postpartum visit (9). All cases of syphilis must be reported to the local health department for partner notification and identification of core populations and environments (10,11).KeywordsMaternal TreatmentRapid Plasma ReaginCongenital SyphilisVenereal Disease Research LaboratoryBenzathine PenicillinThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum. This historical disease has diverse clinical manifestations making laboratory testing crucial for optimal patient management. Direct detection of T.pallidum by dark-field microscopy is possible when lesions are present. Culture of the bacteria is complex and not performed routinely. There is no well-validated commercially available polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Serological tests are currently the most common diagnostic methods adapted in clinical laboratories. They provide a presumptive diagnosis and used for screening, diagnosis, and follow-up of the treatment. They are divided into two groups, named as nontreponemal and treponemal tests and performed by the application of the traditional algorithm, the reverse sequence algorithm or European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) algorithm. The traditional algorithm starts with a nontreponemal test and a reactive result is confirmed with a treponemal test. In the reverse sequence algorithm, a treponemal test is used for screening and a reactive result is confirmed by a quantitative nontreponemal test. When the nontreponemal test is negative, a second different treponemal test preferably T.pallidum particle agglutination test (TPPA) is used. The ECDC algorithm recommends screening by a treponemal test such as T.pallidum enzym immunoassay (TP-EIA), T.pallidum chemiluminescence immunoassay (CIA) and if reactive, a reflex confirmatory treponemal test is performed. The treponemal tests become reactive a few weeks after infection and remain reactive even after successful treatment. The nontreponemal tests are used to assess disease activity and response to therapy. Serological tests have many limitations such as false-positivity, falsenegativity in various stages of the disease and also challenging difficulties when evaluating response to therapy. In recent years, rapid syphilis tests which are mostly treponemal-specific tests have been developed for high-prevalence populations in resource limited settings. There has been requirement for the utility of standart PCR and IgM testing in the diagnosis of congenital syphilis and neurosyphilis cases. In this review article, it was aimed to present the diagnostic tests, the algorithms, the correct indications for testing and interpretation of the test results to the likely corresponding clinical stage of the disease with in the perspective of recent advances.

BackgroundSerologic tests for syphilis remain the mainstay of diagnosis. However, diagnosis of congenital syphilis is complicated by the passive transfer of maternal antibodies to the infant. Non treponemal test (NTT)...

Serologic tests for syphilis can be quite complex. The screening and confirmatory tests, which number at least eight, are mathematically interpreted as a total of 16 possible combinations, if we choose one test from each of two sets of four. However, this bewildering complexity is simplified if we apply certain principles. We reiterate and propose four axioms. First, we distinguish between treponemal versus non-treponemal tests. The former, the treponemal test, is specific for the spirochete, treponema pallidum, and is used as a confirmatory test. It rarely declines over time. The latter, the non-treponemal test, is a screening test and reflects treponemal or tissue damage, is reported as a titer, and is used to monitor disease activity. We usually need both for screening and confirmatory diagnostic testing. Secondly, for rapid plasma reagin (RPR) tests, a non-treponemal serology test titer of at least 1:8 is suggestive of syphilis, but not necessarily neurosyphilis. A false-negative test usually registers below this dilution level and may be due to the “prozone phenomenon”. Serum RPR titers are usually greater than 1:32. Thirdly, a negative treponemal test in the cerebrospinal fluid excludes neurosyphilis and a positive test is highly sensitive but lacks specificity, usually due to blood contamination. Most patients with neurosyphilis will have a positive non-treponemal test in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) with elevated protein and pleocytosis. Fourthly, a serological cure is defined as at least a four-fold decline in a non-treponemal test titer at three and six months, or a persistently low titer after treatment. Patients who do not fulfill these criteria are known as “serofast”. We describe the case of a 38-year-old man with human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 who developed bilateral optic disc edema with photopsias and transient visual obscurations.

BackgroundA growing number of diagnostic laboratories have recently adopted treponemal EIA tests that permits automation for syphilis screening thus reducing time and labor. This leads to a reverse sequence approach...

Three cases of infectious mononucleosis with concurrent false-positive non-treponemal and treponemal tests: Serological findings masquerading as syphilis