Comparison of Mother and Child Antibodies That Target High- Molecular-Mass Toxoplasma gondii Antigens by Immunoblotting Improves Neonatal Diagnosis of Congenital Toxoplasmosis

This retrospective study proposes a new reading of immunoblotting (IB) in the diagnosis of congenital toxoplasmosis. Our find-ings demonstrate that a three-IgM-band association at 75, 90, and 100 kDa called the IgM triplet increases the sensitivity to 95.8%when combined with prenatal and serological neonatal tests. Primary infection with Toxoplasma gondii during pregnancycan have severe consequences for the fetus such asmiscarriage or severe neurological or ocular lesions (5, 10, 11, 14). Detection of Toxoplasma gondii infection in pregnancy has been implemented at a national or regional level in several Euro-pean countries (1) and is also performed worldwide at the initia-tive of clinicians. When seroconversion occurs, tests are per-formed to detect and treat congenital toxoplasmosis (CT) as early as possible in an attempt to reduce the severity of the disease (2, 3, 4, 10, 17, 18). In this way, CT diagnosis is confirmed if one of the following tests is positive: prenatal diagnosis based on the detec-tion of Toxoplasma gondii in the amniotic fluid or neonatal diag-nosis primarily based on the detection of neosynthesis of Ig