Evaluation of point of care tests for the diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Suriname

BACKGROUND: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a serious health problem in Suriname. To expand the diagnostic options, two newly developed diagnostic tests, i.e. the rapid diagnostic test CL Detect™ Rapid Test (CL Detect) and the Loopamp™ Leishmania Detection Kit (Loopamp) were evaluated. METHODS: Diagnostic test performance was compared to the routine diagnostic approach in place, i.e. clinical symptoms combined with microscopy, and to polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which was used as a reference standard. The study population (n = 93) was a typical representation of the CL affected population in Suriname and mainly infected with Leishmania guyanensis. RESULTS: CL Detect had a very low sensitivity compared to microscopy (36.7%) or PCR (35.8%), due to a high number of false negative results. The specificity of the CL Detect compared to microscopy and PCR was 85.7 and 83.3% respectively. Loopamp sensitivity was 84.8% compared to microscopy and 91.4% compared to PCR. The Loopamp test had a moderate specificity (42.9%) compared to microscopy, but a good specificity compared to PCR (91.7%). CONCLUSION: The CL Detect is not likely to be a good replacement for the routine diagnostic procedure for CL in Suriname. The high sensitivity of the easy to perform Loopamp enables the implementation of sensitive molecular diagnosis in resource limited settings.