posted
Hi there, Is there any good peer-reviwed cited material on the innacuracy of lyme testing? I need the best material for my doctor.Not just an article.I know Dr S and H have some BUT cant seem to download them..
[ 03-26-2017, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: faithful777 ]
Posts: 2 | From CA | Registered: Mar 2017
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posted
Perhaps you could look at an article on this at the top of Medical Questions in the sticky Important Information about Lyme and Co-infections - scroll down to the link that's titled 27 reasons why Lyme testing could come back negative.
There is a diversity of reasons for a negative test when we're actually positive.
Posts: 13116 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006
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bluelyme
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 47170
posted
If its just for you consider the dna connexions test ...if you are trying to sway a regular gp to treat empiricallly and long term clinically dx then you may wanna seek a llmd
-------------------- Blue Posts: 1539 | From southwest | Registered: Dec 2015
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
Here is one of my long-time favorites by Dr. L in NY.
Here is one in which Johns Hopkins study the accuracy of tests and finds up to 75% of patients are missed using tests currently on the market. The abstract alone is very misleading, but the study's actual results tells the story.
Here are some others. Not sure exactly what point you are trying to make, so offering these just in case. Early Lyme, late Lyme? Other tests are better, etc.
Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
And here is one by some of the IDSA ducks themselves- brand new- claiming the WB tests are...
QUOTE- “Western blots are also complex, difficult to interpret, and relatively expensive."
They go on to say they don't need the Western Blots...
QUOTE- “...obviating the need for Western blots."
Clin Infect Dis. 2017 Jan 27. doi: 10.1093/cid/cix043. [Epub ahead of print] Evaluation of Modified 2-Tiered Serodiagnostic Testing Algorithms for Early Lyme Disease. Branda JA1, Strle K2, Nigrovic LE3, Lantos PM4, Lepore TJ5, Damle NS6,7, Ferraro MJ1,2, Steere AC2. Author information 1 Departments of Pathology and. 2 Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. 3 Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Massachusetts. 4 Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina. 5 Nantucket Cottage Hospital, Nantucket, Massachusetts. 6 South County Internal Medicine, Wakefield, and. 7 Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Abstract
BACKGROUND.: The conventional 2-tiered serologic testing protocol for Lyme disease (LD), an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) followed by immunoglobulin M and immunoglobulin G Western blots, performs well in late-stage LD but is insensitive in patients with erythema migrans (EM), the most common manifestation of the illness.
Western blots are also complex, difficult to interpret, and relatively expensive.
In an effort to improve test performance and simplify testing in early LD, we evaluated several modified 2-tiered testing (MTTT) protocols, which use 2 assays designed as first-tier tests sequentially, without the need of Western blots.
METHODS.: The MTTT protocols included (1) a whole-cell sonicate (WCS) EIA followed by a C6 EIA; (2) a WCS EIA followed by a VlsE chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA); and (3) a variable major protein-like sequence, expressed (VlsE) CLIA followed by a C6 EIA.
Sensitivity was determined using serum from 55 patients with erythema migrans; specificity was determined using serum from 50 patients with other illnesses and 1227 healthy subjects.
RESULTS.: Sensitivity of the various MTTT protocols in patients with acute erythema migrans ranged from 36% (95% confidence interval [CI], 25%-50%) to 54% (95% CI, 42%-67%), compared with 25% (95% CI, 16%-38%) using the conventional protocol (P = .003-0.3).
Among control subjects, the 3 MTTT protocols were similarly specific (99.3%-99.5%) compared with conventional 2-tiered testing (99.5% specificity; P = .6-1.0).
CONCLUSIONS.:
Although there were minor differences in sensitivity and specificity among MTTT protocols, each provides comparable or greater sensitivity in acute EM, and similar specificity compared with conventional 2-tiered testing, obviating the need for Western blots.
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