Abdominal angiostrongyliasis is a potentially fatal zoonotic disease with a broad geographical distribution throughout Central and South America. This study assessed the performance of
Angiostrongylus costaricensis
eggs as the antigen in an indirect immunofluorescence assay for the determination of parasite-specific IgG and IgG1 antibodies. For prevalence studies, an IgG antibody titre ≥ 16 was identified as the diagnostic threshold with the best performance, providing 93.7% sensitivity and 84.6% specificity. Cross reactivity was evaluated with 65 additional samples from patients with other known parasitic infections. Cross reactivity was observed only in samples from individuals infected with
Strongyloides stercoralis
. For clinical diagnosis, we recommend the determination of IgG only as a screening test. IgG1 determination may be used to increase the specificity of the results for patients with a positive screening test.
