Syphilis: Investigation

Key points

• Treponema pallidum is a very sensitive organism and cannot be grown on artificial media. The diagnosis is therefore usually based on clinical features,
• cardiolipin tests (not treponeme specific)
• treponemal specific antibody tests Cardiolipin tests
• syphilis infection leads to the production of non-specific antibodies that react to cardiolipin
• examples include VDRL (Venereal Disease Research Laboratory) & RPR (rapid plasma reagin)