Table 1 Systematic review of the direct agglutination test (DAT) for the diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis in humans: inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria

Prospective and retrospective studies on diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis, independent of study design

Any variation of the DAT technique and a comparator standard used for diagnosing visceral leishmaniasis

Paired data: The same samples tested with any variation of the DAT method compared to any comparator standard

Epidemiological and or laboratory studies

Exclusion criteria

Lack of data (studies that do not include, for example, individual participant results, comparator standard, Leishmania species/origin, study type, sample type; see also Fig. 1)

Discrepancies suspected between the studied group and the control group

Reviews

Commentaries

Case studies with ≤ 5 cases

Duplicate publications

Patients with others types of leishmaniasis or infectious diseases other than visceral leishmaniasis

Patients with post kalazar dermal leishmaniasis

Animal studies