Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics has introduced the ADVIA Centaur Syphilis Assay to detect antibodies against Treponema pallidum, a bacterium known to cause the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis.
According to Siemens, addition of this syphilis assay to the ADVIA Centaur menu allows further consolidation of infectious disease testing onto a single platform, helping laboratories to improve their efficiency and deliver fast, accurate results The assay has been CE-marked for use on Siemens' ADVIA Centaur range of high-throughput, random-access immunoassay systems.
The symptoms of syphilis can mimic other infections in advanced stages but when left untreated it can lead to serious neurological and cardiovascular complications, and cause stillbirth in pregnant women.
However, detection of syphilis antibodies in patients may be used to support decisions for antibiotic therapy, detect persons at risk of spreading the infection and identify those that are not aware of their infection, thus preventing late complications.
Recently, a meta-analysis of 10 studies involving 41,049 women found that screening and treatment of the infection in pregnant women could reduce by more than half the number of stillbirths and perinatal deaths resulting from maternal transmission of syphilis.
