Failure of Passive Transfer

When a newborn foal fails to obtain the antibodies he needs from his mother in his first hours of life, he can become very sick or even die from septicemia (body-wide infection). Quick identification of failure of passive transfer (FPT) is key to his survival, but the "gold standard" RID IgG test for FPT takes 18-24 hours. By the time those test results come back and treatment is initiated, it could be too late.

J.T. McClure, DVM, MS, of the University of Prince Edward Island, presented the results of a study comparing different types of stall-side tests for FPT. The tests included a glutaraldehyde coagulation test, the CITE ELISA, the SNAP ELISA 1 (2000), and SNAP ELISA 2 (revised version released in 2001).

McClure explained that a good test for FPT needs to be both highly sensitive and highly specific. A highly sensitive test is one that produces very few false negative results, and a highly specific one produces very few false positives