Possible false positive result

[Decemberbaby37]

Hello,

I recently went in for a routine obgyn visit 11/29/2022. I received a pap smear and asked for blood testing. They also did a swab with the pap. My pap results came back perfect- I was negative for everything they looked for. However my blood work came back positive for Hsv1 and 2. This came as a complete shock due to me never having any outbreaks or symptoms. No cold sores no genital bumps or blisters Ever. I had unprotected sex more than 5 months ago. This person claims to not have HSV.

The test I received was a Serum herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1 and 2 IgM antibody assay.

The result was a 0.95

There were also these two test results below:

Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) Antibody Type 1, IgG

Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) Antibody Type 2, IgG

Both results stated Reactive.

Could this be a false positive that needs a confirmatory test?

• This topic was modified 3 months ago by Decemberbaby37.

[Terri Warren]

First, I am so sorry to have missed your post.
Without any index values for your IgG test, I can’t help you know how likely a false positive is. You could do a couple of things to get clarity:

First, an IgM should never have been done. Major labs have pulled this test and the CDC says never to use it due to high rates of false positive.

You could get testing done at a lab that gives index values, like Quest or LabCorp. They also give false positives, but at least you would know if you were in the low positive range (below 5) or not. In my experience and the reported data from Quest in one study, false positives in the low positive range can be about 50% of the time – this is very bad indeed.

Or you could go directly to the western blot, the gold standard test

Terri

[Author]

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