Update of laboratory medicine procedures related to the diagnosis of larval echinococcosis - INAHTA Brief

Echinococcosis is a zoonotic disease caused by tapeworm larvae of the genus Echinococcus. The aim of this report was to review the serological techniques for detecting anti-Echinococcus antibodies that are currently validated for initial testing, confirming diagnosis and follow-up of treated patients.

. This work responds to a request from French National Health Insurance regarding updating the list of Procedures in Medical Biology (NABM[1]) that it reimburses. This request envisaged limiting initial testing to enzyme immunoassay techniques (EIA/ELISA) and indirect haemagglutination (IHA), confirmation to the Western blot (WB), and finally to specify in the wording of the follow-up that the technique used must be quantitative.