Long-Term Serologic Studies with Treponemal Procedures

The purpose of this paper is to document our experience with treponemal testing since 1955 in a series of 1,064 clinically evaluated patients, and to discuss the patterns of seroreactivity after therapy in the various stages of syphilitic infection. We have been fortunate in being able to serologically evaluate certain cases for as long as 25 to 30 years after treatment. The tests used in this study consist of specific treponemal procedures as well as a battery of standard serologic tests for syphilis. The treponemal procedures employed were the Treponema pallidum complement-fixation 1 (TPCF) test, the Reiter protein complement-fixation 2 (RPCF) test, and the Treponema pallidum immobilization (TPI) test. All of the serums studied were subjected to the TPCF and RPCF tests in our laboratory. A small number of serums were tested with the TPI test which was performed by Dr. James N. Miller of the University of California Medical