Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Accuracy of two rapid tests for diagnosing Giardia in dogs
By Costa, M et al.·Published in The Journal of small animal practice·2016·School of Veterinary Science, United Kingdom·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Diagnostic accuracy of two point-of-care kits for the diagnosis of Giardia species infection in dogs.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs with suspected Giardia infection (a type of intestinal parasite) had their stool samples tested using two new rapid tests, the Single and Triple Rapid tests, and compared to standard tests. The Triple Rapid test showed good accuracy, especially in identifying infected dogs, while the Single Rapid test was less reliable. Both tests were very good at confirming when dogs were not infected, but the Triple Rapid test performed better overall. These new tests could be useful for quick in-house diagnosis of Giardia, especially when the infection rates are low.
People also search for: dog diarrhea Giardia treatment · how to test for Giardia in dogs · dog stool test accuracy
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to compare results obtained by ZnSO4 Flotation and SNAP (®) Giardia to those generated by the new point-of-care tests Single and Triple Rapid. METHODS: Prospective study evaluating 51 canine faecal samples submitted at a reference laboratory for the presence of Giardia spp. Kappa statistics, specificity, sensitivity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated by comparing the new tests to the combined results of ZnSO4 and SNAP tests. RESULTS: There was fair (Single Rapid, j=0·434) to good (Triple Rapid, j =0·797) agreement with the reference tests. At this study's prevalence (59 to 61%), specificities and PPV were high (1·00) with both Rapid tests, but sensitivities and NPV were lower for the Single than for the Triple (0·48 vs 0·83 and 0·55 vs 0·80) tests. At lower prevalence rates, both tests exhibited a high PPV (1·00), but the NPV were higher with the Triple (0·96 to 0·99) than the Single (0·88 to 0·96) Rapid test. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Both tests exhibited excellent PPV values at all prevalence rates but an excellent NPV only at low prevalence. As the prevalence is likely to be low (<15%) in clinical settings, we propose that these tests may be helpful in the in-house diagnosis of Giardia spp infection. However, they exhibit lower sensitivity than the combined sensitivity of ZnSO4 and SNAP tests, particularly in high prevalence settings.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27251310/