Evaluation of Protoscolex Antigens for Hydatidosis Detection before and after Surgery

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a zoonotic infection caused Echinococcus granulosus with worldwide distribution. As one of the problems that can be encountered after treating CE patients is the risk of postsurgical relapses or treatment failure, a long-term clinical and serological follow-up is required to evaluate the success and failure of therapy. We used extract protoscolex antigen from fresh sheep hydatid cyst collect from slaughtered in Ahvaz. Overall we tested 180 serum samples comprising: 41 sera from post surgically confirmed CE from 6 month to 20 years after surgery, 69 sera from patients with symptomatic CE and 50 sera from non CE patients and 20 heterologous sera were evaluated with SDS-PAGE gel electrophoresis and western blotting. The sensitive of the 38 KDa PSC Antigen was 67 % pre and 83 % after surgery and 100% specify. All hepatic CE and 66.6 % of pulmonary CE sera was reacted with PSC Antigen. The results indicate that the hydatid specific antibodies of IgG, IgG1 and IgG4 are the most important antibodies for the serological diagnosis of CE during the active stage of the disease and Ig G, particularly sub-class Ig G4 was more suitable for postoperative follow up.