| Backhand 2005-01-27, 8:51 am |
| My 7 yo daughter has just had a positive ANA screening, yet titer
below detectable limits. No info as to the pattern of the positive
result. Only other seemingly applicable tests done on these samples
were sedimentation rate, rheumatoid factor, lyme and EBV, all negative
or very low.
Symptoms are (I think) minor. Occasional joint pain (nothing severe -
again my opinion), occasional minor fatigue, a single feinting
incident.
The kid grows in amazing spurts, sometime 1.5 inches or so in a 3
month period.
Is the qualitative ANA screen prone to giving a positive when there
are no detectable limits of antibodies present? Is the qualitative ANA
method able to detect the presence of antibodies that the quantitative
is only able to report as <=1:40? Finally, it seems the quantitative
threshold of 1:40 (or :80) seems to be the defining level of
antibodies as a 'prbolem', is it considered to having a titer of
<=1:40 as being negative despite the positive qualitative test?
Rheumatologist visit in the works.
Thanks.
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