Why Nontreponemal Syphilis Testing?

If you’ve been watching the syphilis screening business over the past few years, you will have noticed a significant paradigm shift.  Nontreponemal assays which had been recommended by the CDC and were the “gold standard” for syphilis screening for decades were slowly being pushed aside by advocates of automated treponemal assays.  For the sake of “automation”, treponemal device manufacturers’, hospitals and diagnostic labs paved the way for what became known as the “reverse algorithm”.    This new screening algorithm cost more, created extra steps in the screening process and made it more difficult for doctors to monitor the progress of their patients’ syphilis treatments...But it was automated and device manufacturers quickly filled the vacuum and began touting the merits of the treponemal “reverse algorithm”.

In 2013 a shift in the paradigm occurred when Arlington Scientific, Inc. (ASI) introduced the world’s first nontreponemal semi-automated test card reader, the ASiManager-AT™.   This first step in bridging the gap between manual and automated nontreponemal methods was touted as “the most significant innovation to syphilis testing in the last 30 years.”  The algorithm used to digitally read RPR test cards in the ASiManager-AT™ would become the stepping stone to the ASI Evolution® Automated Syphilis Analyzer. The ASI Evolution® will combine the benefits of the nontreponemal assay, with the automation the testing industry needs.

ASI is proud to be a leader in the syphilis screening industry….And if you’ve been watching; device manufactures which had labeled the nontreponemal method as “outdated and inefficient” are rapidly making their way back to the nontreponemal assay.  As the leader in nontreponemal testing, ASI applauds this paradigm shift back to nontreponemal testing and invites others to “Follow the Leader”.   For additional information contact Mike LaDow at 800-654-0146.