Evaluation of a new in-clinic method for the detection of canine heartworm antigen

Abstract

Canine heartworm is endemic in many parts of the world, and veterinarians rely on rapid in-clinic antigen tests to screen for this infection. Recently, an in-clinic, instrument-based rotor employing a colloidal gold agglutination immunoassay was launched in the marketplace (VetScan VS2 ® Canine Heartworm (HW) Antigen Test Kit; Abaxis, Inc.). Because of the widespread use of heartworm prevention and possible false negative test results in dogs with low heartworm burdens, the performance of the VetScan VS2 ® HW test and a commercially available in-clinic, membrane-based ELISA test (SNAP ® Heartworm RT Test; IDEXX Laboratories) was compared using samples from dogs with low heartworm burdens and/or low levels of circulating antigen. Ninety serum samples were evaluated using the two methods. Testing was performed according to the manufacturer's product insert by personnel blinded to sample status. The samples were derived from two populations: dogs with necropsy-confirmed heartworm status (40 with 1–4 female worms, 30 with no worms), and field dogs (20) confirmed positive for antigen by microtiter plate ELISA (PetChek ® Heartworm PF Antigen Test; IDEXX Laboratories). All 40 dogs with heartworms on necropsy were also confirmed to have circulating antigen by the PetChek HW ELISA. In necropsy-negative dogs ( n = 30), neither the VetScan VS2 HW nor SNAP HW tests detected heartworm antigen. Of the samples testing positive for antigen by PetChek HW ( n = 60), the VetScan VS2 HW and SNAP HW tests detected antigen in 15 and 56 samples, respectively. Percent agreement (plus 95% confidence interval) for each test relative to the PetChek HW qualitative result was 50% (40–60%) for VetScan VS2 HW and 96% (89–98%) for SNAP HW. Relative to the presence or absence of female worms at necropsy, agreement was 61% (50–72%) for VetScan VS2 HW and 99% (92–99.6%) for SNAP HW tests. It is clinically important that dogs with low heartworm burdens and/or low levels of circulating heartworm antigen be correctly identified by veterinarians in order to ensure prompt treatment, and the VetScan ® VS2 HW test does not appear to be as accurate as the SNAP HW or PetChek HW tests when performed on this subset of patients.