These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: [Evaluation of the Widal test for diagnosing typhoid fever in Lebanon].
    Author: Hamze M, Naboulsi M, Vincent P.
    Journal: Pathol Biol (Paris); 1998 Oct; 46(8):613-6. PubMed ID: 9871933.
    Abstract:
    Typhoid fever is a major public health problem in developing countries. In Lebanon, where the sanitary infrastructure was severely damaged during the civil war, the high prevalence of typhoid fever creates a pressing need for a rapid and reliable diagnostic tool. To evaluate the diagnostic usefulness of the Widal test, patients with a positive blood culture for Salmonella typhi (n = 78) were compared to controls with fever due to another infection (n = 65) and with blood donors (n = 96). Discrimination between the patient group and the two control groups was best when an agglutinin O titer of 1/160 or more was used. With this cutoff, sensitivity was 67.9%; specificity was 93.8% versus the febrile controls and 100% versus the blood donors. These results suggest that despite its well-known limitations the Widal test remains a valuable tool for typhoid fever control in many developing countries.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]