CXCL13 in laboratory diagnosis of Lyme neuroborreliosis-the performance of the recomBead and ReaScan CXCL13 assays in human cerebrospinal fluid samples

The chemokine CXCL13 is used as complement to serology in the diagnostics of Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB). We evaluated and compared the semi-quantitative, cassette-based ReaScan CXCL13 assay with the quantitative recomBead CXCL13 assay using a collection of 209 cerebrospinal fluid samples. The categorical agreement between results interpreted as negative, grey zone, and positive by the two methods was 87%. The diagnostic sensitivity was higher using the recomBead assay, whereas specificity was higher using ReaScan. Few manual steps, and a short turn-around time with no batching of samples makes the ReaScan CXCL13 assay an attractive complement to serology in the diagnostics of LNB.

Automated summary

The study compared the semi-quantitative, cassette-based ReaScan CXCL13 assay with the quantitative recomBead CXCL13 assay in the diagnostics of Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB), showing an 87% categorical agreement between the two methods. The recomBead assay demonstrated higher diagnostic sensitivity, while the ReaScan assay showed higher specificity. With few manual steps and a short turn-around time, the ReaScan CXCL13 assay is an attractive complement to serology in the diagnostics of LNB.