Comparison between prostate specific antigen and acid phosphatase for detection of semen in vaginal swabs from raped women

ObjectiveTo compare the effectiveness of the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test and the acid phosphatase (AP) test for semen detection in human vaginal samples.Material and methodThe source materials were vaginal swabs that were tested at Ramathibodi Hospital between 2008 and 2010 from 2450 cases of raped women. Each swab was tested for semen by three methods: sperm detection by light microscopy, the AP enzymatic reaction, and the presence of PSA by using an immuno-chromatographic rapid kit test. The efficiencies of the AP and PSA tests were compared using the light microscopy result for the presence of sperm as the gold standard.ResultThe specificities of the AP, the PSA and the combined AP-PSA tests were 96.4%, 92.3% and 91.9%, respectively, and the sensitivities were 65.5%, 80.4% and 84.5%, respectively. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) area of the AP, PSA and combined AP-PSA tests were 0.8091, 0.8639 and 0.8823, respectively. The ROC area of the PSA test was significantly greater than that of the AP test (p < 0.0001), and the ROC area of the combined AP-PSA test was significantly greater than both the tests individually (p < 0.0001).DiscussionBased on the ROC area, the PSA test was better than the AP test for semen detection in the vaginal swabs, and the combined results (AP + PSA) were better than the individual tests. The specificity of the AP test was higher than the PSA test in this study because a positive detection was made within only 15 s. While the PSA test was more convenient as it was available in a rapid test kit format, our recommendation is PSA detection should be done together with AP test and spermatozoa examination to identify evidence of rape.ConclusionUsing these three tests together (AP, PSA, and spermatozoa detection) was recommended as a forensic tool for investigations of vaginal swabs of the rape victims.