Interlaboratory Comparison of Porcine Circovirus-2 Indirect Immunofluorescent Antibody Test and Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Results on Experimentally Infected Pigs

A blinded interlaboratory assessment of the diagnostic agreement and accuracy of serologic tests for routine detection of antibodies against Porcine circovirus-2 (PCV-2), including indirect fluorescent antibody tests (IFATs) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) was conducted in 7 North American laboratories. Serum samples were collected weekly, on trial days 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, and 49, from the following groups of animals: 1) negative controls (n = 7), 2) PCV-2a (n = 8), 3) PCV-2b (n = 8), 4) PCV-1 (n = 8), 5) PCV-2 vaccine A (n = 8; Ingelvac® CircoFLEX™), 6) PCV-2 vaccine B (n = 8; Circumvent® PCV2), and 7) PCV-2 vaccine C (n = 8; Suvaxyn® PCV2 One Dose). Results from each laboratory were analyzed by kappa and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Kappa analysis indicated that, by trial day 49, IFATs had almost perfect agreement, in-house ELISAs had fair to almost perfect agreement, and commercially available anti-PCV-2 immunoglobulin G ELISAs (I or S) had moderate to substantial agreement. From trial days 14-49, the area under the ROC curve for the 2 laboratories that offered IFATs, the 4 laboratories that offered in-house ELISAs, and the 3 laboratories that used commercially available ELISAs ranged from 0.94 to 1.00, 0.72 to 1.00, and 0.95 to 1.00, respectively. However, test sensitivities varied based on laboratory-specific cutoffs that were used to dichotomize test results.