Improved Testing of Recent HIV-1 Infections with the BioRad Avidity Assay Compared to the Limiting Antigen Avidity Assay and BED Capture Enzyme Immunoassay: Evaluation Using Reference Sample Panels from the German Seroconverter Cohort

BACKGROUND: The variety and limitations of current laboratory methods for estimating HIV-incidence has driven attempts to improve and standardize the performance of serological ‘Tests for Recent HIV-Infections’ (TRI). Primary and follow-up HIV-1 positive plasma samples from individuals with well-defined dates of infection collected as part of the German Seroconverter Cohort provided specimens highly suitable for use in comparing the performance of three TRIs: the AWARE™ BED™ EIA HIV-1 Incidence test (BED-CEIA), Genetic systems HIV-1/HIV-2 Plus O EIA antibody avidity-based assay (BioRad Avidity) and Sedia™ HIV-1 LAg Avidity EIA (LAg Avidity). METHODS: The evaluation panel included 180 specimens: 44 from antiretroviral (ARV)-naïve individuals with recently acquired HIV-infection (≤130 days; 25 B and 19 non-B subtypes) and 136 from long-term (>12 months) infected individuals [101 ARV-naïve subtype B, 16 non-B subtypes, 14 ARV-treated individuals, 5 slow progressors (SLP)]. RESULTS: For long-term infected, ARV-naïve individuals the false recent rates (FRR) of both the BioRad and LAg Avidity assays were 2% (2/101 for subtype B) and 6% (1/16 for subtype ‘non-B’), while the FRR of the BED-CEIA was 7% (7/101 for subtype B) and 25% (4/16 for subtype ‘non-B’) (all p>0.05). Misclassification of ARV-treated individuals and SLP was rare by LAg (1/14, 0/5) and BioRad Avidity assays (2/14, 1/5) but more frequent by BED-CEIA (5/14, 3/5). Among recently-infected individuals (subtype B), 60% (15/25) were correctly classified by BED-CEIA, 88% (22/25) by BioRad Avidity and significantly fewer by LAg (48%, 12/25) compared to BioRad Avidity (p = 0.005) with a higher true-recency rate among non-B infections for all assays. CONCLUSIONS: This study using well-characterized specimens demonstrated lower FRRs for both avidity methods than with the BED-CEIA. For recently infected individuals the BioRad Avidity assay was shown to give the most accurate results.