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Field trial of the specificity of an ELISA test for PRRS (IDEXX HERDCHEK® PRRS 2XR) high
specificity confirmed, but varying behaviour according to the age of the animals
Vincent Auvigne1 Jean-Louis Pinsard2 Hervé Gourgues3
1. Ekipaj, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain; 2. Bio Chêne Vert, Chateaubourg, France; 3. IDEXX Laboratories , Cergy Pontoise, France

Introduction Figure 1: Distribution of S/P ratios according to the age

The laboratory diagnosis of the Porcine Respiratory and Repro-
ductive Syndrome (PRRS) is mainly based on the use of sero-
logical ELISA tests and PCR diagnostics. The aim of this study was
to assess the specificity of a commercial ELISA test. In particular,
the specificity of the test is compared in two different subpopu-
lations: adult breeding sows and young pigs.

Materials and methods

The study takes into account a set of results carried out on
French pig farms that are considered free of the PRRSV and with
a low risk of contamination (areas with a low pig density or air
filtration system). The farms are tested at least three times a year.
The IDEXX HerdChek® PRRS 2XR is an indirect Elisa test for the
detection of antibodies against the European and American
strains of the PRRSV in the serum of pigs. Samples with an S/P
ratio of 0.4 or more are positive. Those of less than 0.4 are nega-
tive. Only the first results were included in the study, before
carrying out any confirmatory tests.
All farms with a positive result were checked to confirm that
the farm was indeed considered as free from the disease, and to
check if at least one subsequent negative result allowed exclud-
ing the hypothesis of a recent contamination.
Results
Test results carried out between December 2007 and March
2009 were taken into account. 641 adult animals (breeding
sows) and 1017 young stock (between 80 and 150 days of age)
were included in the study.
Specificity was significantly higher in young stock than in the
adults (Chi2, p < 0.02, Table 1). Analysis of the S/P ratio distribu-
tions of adult and young pigs showed a difference between the
two sub-populations (Figure 1). They differed in the average
(Mann & Whitney test, p < 0.001) and in the standard deviation.
The percentage of borderline-negative results (S/P between 0.2
and 0.4) was higher in adult pigs.
Table 1: Specificity of the test in both populations
False positive results ranged from values very close to the limit
(5 out of 16 with S/P < 0.45) to clearly positive values (5 out of 16
false with S/P >1).
Discussion
The main difficulty of specificity studies in the absence of a refer-
ence tests is to deal with a disease-free study population. In this
study, the combination of a history of controls and a low risk of
contamination allowed affirming that the positive test results
were false positives.
The observed values of specificity are high and confirm existing
data obtained with a smaller sample (1). These specificity values
are higher than those obtained with other tests in national con-
trol programmes in a disease-free environment (2). The specifi-
city of a test should be put in balance with its sensitivity, as no
test is 100% specific.
The difference in specificity between the two sub-populations
(young stock and adult animals) studied is an original result.
To our knowledge, this is the first time it has been described in
the context of PRRS. One hypothesis to explain this difference
between the two age groups is the existence of “immunological
background noise”, which increases with age due to the accumu-
lation of non-specific antigenic stimulation. It is surprising to
note that this lesser specificity of adult animals is not due to an
increase of the S/P ratio but to their variability. It would be inter-
esting to have equivalent data for other pathological agents of
pigs in order to determine whether this is a systematic phenom-
enon or only linked to PRRS.

References
1. Idexx Laboratories (1999).
2. Corbellini L.G. et al. Vet Microbiol (2006).118, 267-73

Proceedings of the 21st IPVS Congress, Vancouver, Canada – July 18-21, 2010 203