What blood tests are available to diagnose HSV infections?
Several blood tests are offered by various laboratories, and many health care providers don’t know the differences between them. The accurate ones are the HerpeSelect test, produced by Focus Technologies; biokit-HSV-2, produced by Biokit USA; and the Western blot HSV test, which is used by research labs and isn’t very often commercially available. Be sure that one of these was used; if not, then your result might be falsely positive. As of this writing (May 2005), no other test commercially available in the U.S. accurately distinguishes HSV-1 from HSV-2 infection. Happily, more and more laboratories in the U.S. now do the HerpeSelect test routinely. But if in doubt, ask the health care provider and be sure the right kind of test was done. (A common clue that the right kind of test wasnt done is a result for IgM [immunoglobulin M] antibody. The accurate tests are only for IgG antibody; contrary to earlier beliefs, the presence or absence of IgM antibody to HSV-2 has no diagnostic value.
Several blood tests are offered by various laboratories, and many health care providers don’t know the differences between them. The accurate ones are the HerpeSelect test, produced by Focus Technologies; biokit-HSV-2, produced by Biokit USA; and the Western blot HSV test, which is used by research labs and isn’t very often commercially available. Be sure that one of these was used; if not, then your result might be falsely positive. As of this writing (May 2005), no other test commercially available in the U.S. accurately distinguishes HSV-1 from HSV-2 infection. Happily, more and more laboratories in the U.S. now do the HerpeSelect test routinely. But if in doubt, ask the health care provider and be sure the right kind of test was done. (A common clue that the right kind of test wasnt done is a result for IgM [immunoglobulin M] antibody.
